Preamble

The House met at a Quarter past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH),

Mr. Speaker laid upon the Table,—Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

North Devon Water Board Bill [Lords].

Bill to be read a Second time.

PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS (STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE THERETO COMPLIED WITH),

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table,—Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, namely:

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Corporation (Trolley Vehicles) Provisional Order Bill.

Bill to be read a Second time Tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Loch Sloy Hydro-Electric Scheme

Captain W. T. Shaw: asked the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland if the details of the compromise with the

county of Dumbartonshire in respect of the Loch Sloy hydro-electric scheme have now been agreed; and if he will say what they are.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Chapman): My Noble Friend is informed that discussions between the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board and the County Council of Dunbarton are still proceeding, and I am not in a position to make any statement.

Captain Shaw: Does my hon. Friend appreciate the fact that the secret bargain with the Dumbartonshire County Council was only made a few minutes before the Prayer was due to be discussed; and does he not see that, in order to ensure that this Order as presented to the House has not been amended behind the back of Parliament, the details should be published; and if he cannot get these from the Board will he ask the lawyers of the County Council to produce them so that we may see that Parliamentary Privilege has not been infringed?

Mr. Chapman: That is another question. Discussions are proceeding on the details now.

Mr. McKinlay: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the County Council of Dumbarton are quite willing that the work should proceed?

Captain Shaw: Will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the work will not be allowed to proceed until these details have been made public?

Housinģ

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland how many permanent and temporary houses, respectively, it is intended to have built in Scotland during the next 12 months; and how many builders will be released under Class B for work in Scotland during the same period.

Mr. Chapman: The aim is to have 20,000 permanent houses built or building and some 20,000 temporary houses completed in the period in question. My Noble Friend is informed by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service that it is proposed to release some 60,000 building operatives


in Class B in the first year, but that it is not possible to say in what proportion Scotland will share in this release.

Mr. Stewart: Is my hon. Friend conveying to the House that he is satisfied that with the labour likely to be available anything comparable to this number of houses will be built?

Mr. Chapman: That is the position at the present moment. My hon. Friend may take it that we shall press for all the help we can get from building labour and other sources.

4. Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, what limitations are now imposed on the amount of expenditure to be incurred in private house repairs and alterations; and if any changes are contemplated.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Manninģham-Buller): I have been asked to reply. As the answer is long I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate a statement in the Official Report.

Mr. Stewart: Could not the hon. Gentleman indicate at least whether any changes are contemplated?

Mr. Manninģham-Buller: The whole operation of this regulation will be kept under review.

Following is the statement:

Under the present Defence Regulation 56A, up to £100 may be spent without licence on building work on any property in any period of twelve months except in London and in certain areas of the Home Counties where the limit is £10.

In the course of the Debate on 22nd March, 1945, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health announced that it was proposed to extend the limit of £10 to the whole of Great Britain. Following upon this announcement, consultations have taken place with the national representatives of the building industry and of the professional bodies concerned and with the local authorities, while a review has also been made of the practical experience of the operation of the £10 limit gained during the last few months in London and the Home Counties. As a result it has been decided to make a number of important modifications before applying the £10 limit to the rest of the country.

These changes are primarily designed to ease the task of the local authority staffs who will have to assist in administering the scheme and to relax some of the more irksome restrictions upon the freedom of action of both householders and builders.

The main features of the modified licensing system will be as follows:

(1) The new scheme will come into force throughout Great Britain, including London and the Home Counties, as from 1st August and will cover the period from that date to 31st January, 1946.
(2) During this six months' period, building work costing up to £10 may be undertaken without a licence (i.e., at the rate of £20 per annum).
(3) In addition, £2 worth of work may be undertaken in each calendar month from August to January. (This monthly allowance, which is not cumulative, has been introduced primarily to avoid applications for licences for trifling repairs.)
(4) Work of an emergency character (e.g., the repair of burst pipes) may, of course, be undertaken without waiting for a licence.
(5) In reckoning the amount of work which may be undertaken without a licence (i.e., up to £10 during the period plus the additional £2 allowance in any one calendar month) no account will be taken of:

(a) Work which has been licensed or authorised by a Government Department.
(b) Work undertaken by a local authority (e.g., bomb damage repair), or licensed by a local authority.

(6) Where work is carried out by an owner or occupier on premises occupied or to be occupied wholly or partly as a private dwelling, with his own personal labour, or with unpaid labour, the value of these services and the cost of any materials used by this labour will be disregarded.
(7) The £10 and £2 allowances will be applied to all separate dwellings individually. (Hitherto the great majority of blocks of flats and tenements were reckoned as one unit.)


(8) Owners of property for which the £10 and £2 allowances would be totally inadequate, may obtain maintenance licences from local authorities to cover specified categories of maintenance and repairs where the cost does not exceed £100 over a period of twelve months. Above that amount Regional Licensing Officers will continue to issue annual maintenance licences.
(9) In cases where a local authority issues a Statutory Notice on grounds of public health, danger, etc., a licence will automatically be granted.
(10) The Minister of Works will delegate to local authorities the power to issue licences on his behalf in respect of work costing up to £100.
(11) Licences for amounts above £100 will be granted by the Ministry of Works Regional Licensing Officers. Where an owner or occupier wishes to build, repair, adapt or convert a dwelling house, at a cost exceeding £100, the local authority will, as hitherto, consider whether the work in question is essential and, if so, will grant a "Certificate of Essentiality." On receipt of such a certificate, the Regional Licensing Officer of the Ministry of Works will normally grant a licence.
(12) The powers thus given to local authorities of issuing licences for all works costing up to £100 and of issuing Certificates of Essentiality for housing work above that sum, will enable the local authorities to decide for them selves, in the light of local needs, the respective priorities to be accorded to various types of building work, and to ensure that their housing programmes are not prejudiced by the carrying out of less essential building projects.

These new arrangements will be subject to periodical review.

Mr. Kirkwood: asked the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland how many houses have been built in Scotland since 31st December, 1944; and what steps he is taking to secure further supplies of materials, the release of skilled men from the Forces for the building industry and generally to expedite the building of houses which are so urgently needed in Scotland.

Mr. Chapman: The number of houses completed by local authorities in Scotland since 31st December, 1944, is 459. With regard to the second part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the White Paper on Housing issued in March which explains the steps taken for carrying the Government's housing policy into effect, and to the statement made on the 16th May by the then Minister of Labour about the release of building trade operatives from the Forces.

Mr. Kirkwood: Arising from that reply, which is not very encouraging—seeing that we have now got an earl as Secretary of State for Scotland I expected something outstanding—I wish to ask the Under-secretary if he is aware that in Scotland to-day there are thousands of mothers whose sons have been out fighting and conquering for us in every part of the world, and that these men are coming home, and their mothers and sisters have nowhere for them to lay their heads? What are the Government going to do in a situation like that?

Mr. Chapman: It is true that the soldiers are away fighting. They have been fighting Hitler, and it is Hitler who has prevented those houses being built. Owing to war conditions, housing would have been held up whoever had been in power. Every step at our disposal is being taken to create the maximum number of houses.

Mr. Woodburn: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that building trade employers have been making public statements in Scotland that they have the material and the labour available, and that regulations are preventing them from getting on with building? Could he have that matter looked into?

Mr. Chapman: I will certainly have that looked into, but if the regulations exist they have been in existence for some time.

Sir Herbert Williams: Why is it expected that the Noble Lord should do in a week, what his predecessor failed to do in five years?

Mr. Sloan: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that Scotland is the worst-housed country in Europe other than Spain and Portugal? Is he prepared to produce a scheme which will produce the houses?

Mr. Chapman: Yes, that will be tackled with the utmost speed.

Mr. Kirkwood: The majority of Members here heard the Prime Minister saying last night that we must provide homes for the soldiers when they come back. I am here giving the Government an opportunity of providing those homes£

Hon. Members: Speech.

Mr. Kirkwood: You are shouting "speech" because: you cannot deliver one.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY

Lost Man-Shifts, Nottinģhamshire

Mr. Cocks: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power how many man-shifts have been lost this year at Hucknall No. 1 pit owing to underground workers being sent home because no work was available for them; whether he will give the estimated amount of coal production lost through this cause, the amount of wages paid for men standing idle, and the number of workmen affected.

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd Georģe): Hucknall No. 1 and No. 2 pits have been connected underground since 2nd September, 1944,and consequently no separate returns for each pit have been made. I regret, therefore, I am unable to give the information requested by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Cocks: Can the Minister say whether the situation as envisaged in the Question is still continuing?

Major Lloyd Georģ: The concentration of these two pits which took place in September still continues. Whilst there is difficulty in obtaining transport there has been an improvement in output which has been quite substantial. I hope the position will be quite normal before long.

Mr. Cocks: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power (1) how many man-shifts have been lost this year in the Nottinghamshire coalfield owing to underground workers being sent home because no work was available; whether he will give the estimated tonnage lost through this cause; the amount of wages paid for men standing idle; the number of workmen affected; and the names of the collieries at which this occurred;
(2) why a certain number of underground workers in the Nottinghamshire

coalfield, although receiving the guaranteed wage, have not been found continuous employment.

Major Lloyd Georģ: Eighty thousand man-shifts were lost by underground workers in the Nottinghamshire district from 1st January to 12th May, 1945, owing to work not being available. This figure includes lost shifts arising from wagon shortages and also those of men who have become redundant under the concentration schemes. The corresponding loss of output was 160,000 tons and the payments made to the men concerned amounted to £82,000. The number of men involved is not known. All the collieries in the district except one were affected.

Mr. Cocks: Is it surprising that the output per man-shift is falling when this appalling state of affairs continues? [Interruption.] Then what is it due to—the inefficiency of the Ministry of Mines?

Major Lloyd Georģ: With regard to the pits mentioned in the first Question, output has not fallen but increased since concentration took place. Of the loss 01 160,000 tons referred to by far the largest part is due to wagon shortage, which is entirely outside my control.

Mr. Shinwell: As this loss is not attributable to the miners, will the Minister say what he and his organisation have done to correct the position, and to see that the wagon shortage is corrected?

Major Lloyd Georģ: The hon. Member will be surprised to know that this situation is not unusual in this particular part of the world. Every effort has been made to try to get the position put right. There has been a great deal of improvement, but there are times when owing to operational needs, the area suffers considerably, and this cause is outside my control.

Mr. Shinwell: Are we to understand from the answer that loss in output is not always due to the miners?

Major Lloyd Georģ: I have answered the Question on the Paper. The Question asked what the losses were. I have stated that of the loss of 160,000 tons in this particular coalfield by far the largest part was due to lack of transport.

Mineworkers (Concessionary Coal Supplies)

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power how many mineworkers in South Wales, Cannock Chase, North Staffordshire and Yorkshire, respectively, received coal from collieries at special rates during the year 1944; and what was the average amount per mineworker.

Major Lloyd Georģ: As the answer in-includes a number of figures, I will, with the permission of my hon. Friend, circulate it in the Official Report.

Following is the answer:

The number of miners in South Wales, Cannock Chase, North Staffordshire and Yorkshire, respectively, receiving coal at reduced prices during the year 1944 is not available, but early in 1943, when a census was taken, the numbers receiving free and concessionary coal and the average tonnage supplied per man were as follows:



No. receiving free or concessionary coal.
Average tonnage per man supplied.


South Wales
68,900
7·5


Cannock Chase
12,600
8·3


North Staffordshire
10,700
5·1


Yorkshire
94,600
9·1

The tonnage of coal supplied is the only available information for 1944 and there appears to have been no appreciable change.

Absenteeism

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the figures for the last year to the latest convenient date of the number of shifts worked in coalmines; and separate figures for voluntary absenteeism and absenteeism due to accident or sickness.

Major Lloyd Georģ: The figures my hon. Friend requires are now published in the 1944 Statistical Digest, Cmd. 6639.

German Prisoners of War

Captain Gammans: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he has yet decided that German prisoners are to be employed in coalmines as a temporary measure.

Major Lloyd Georģ: No, Sir. I have reached the conclusion that the employment of German prisoners in British coalmines would not be desirable.

Reid Report Recommendations (Cost)

Mr. James Griffiths: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the estimated capital cost of implementing the recommendations of the Reid Report and the time estimated to be necessary to carry out the changes; and the amount of capital at present invested in the industry.

Major Lloyd Georģ: Until the necessary detailed examinations have been carried out it is not possible, as the Reid Committee itself reported, to estimate the capital cost of implementing the recommendations of the Committee or the time necessary to carry out all the changes. The amount of capital at present invested in the industry is of the order of £200,000,000 to £250,000,000.

Mr. Ivor Thomas: Is that nominal value or the present market price?

Major Lloyd Georģ: Nominal value.

Profits

Mr. J. Griffiths: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the profits made in the coal industry, as revealed by the ascertainments, for the periods 1936 to 1939 and 1940 to 1944, respectively.

Major Lloyd Georģ: As the answer involves a tabular statement, I will, with the hon. Member's consent, circulate it in the Official Report.

Mr. Shinwell: It has often been declared by the mine owners that their profits are not considerable, and, in fact, that quite the contrary is the case. Where is all the money to be found for re-equipping the mines of this country, on the basis of the Reid Report?

Major Lloyd Georģ: On the basis of the Reid Report, which counts on getting something like double the output per man-shift that is got to-day, that would make it possible to re-equip them.

Mr. Shinwell: I have not asked about revenue on the basis of production; I have asked, in view of the allegation of the mine owners that they are not making large profits, where the money is to be found for capital re-equipment?

Major Lloyd Georģ: I have answered the question. If you can make the proposition sufficiently attractive by reducing the cost of production, it will be possible to get people to invest money.

Mr. Sloan: What would be the cost, on the basis of the Reid Report?

Major Lloyd Georģ: It is very difficult to say that. The Reid Report suggests that until a detailed investigation has been made of the whole project, it is not possible to give a figure.

Mr. Georģe Griffiths: But the Government have accepted the Reid Report.

Major Lloyd Georģ: We have accepted the Reid Report as it is written. It does not give a figure.

Following is the answer:

The credit balances revealed by ascertainments, have been published in detail from time to time; the averages for Great Britain have been as follows:


—
Tonnage disposed of commercially
Average credit balance per ton.






s.
d.


1936
…
…
212,000,000
0
11¼


1937
…
…
224,000,000
1
2¾


1938
…
…
210,300,000
1
4


1939
…
…
214,600,000
1
7½


1940
…
…
207,200,000
1
7


1941
…
…
189,600,000
1
9¼


1942
…
…
186,900,000
1
6


1943
…
…
178,400,000
1
6


1944
…
…
168,300,000
1
6¼

The credit balances for 1942 and 1943 were made up to the guaranteed minimum of is. 6d. per ton by payments out of the Coal Charges Account.

ELECTRICITY SUPPLIES, NORFOLK

Sir Thomas Cook: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power if he will authorise the commissioners to increase the supply of electricity at present available to the agricultural distracts of Norfolk.

Major Lloyd Georģ: It has been necessary during the war to restrict the development of electricity supply to war needs and cases of exceptional hardship. The relaxation of these restrictions is at present under consideration, but, even if some relaxation were found possible, shortages

of materials and man-power will continue for some time to limit the rate of development.

COKE OVEN GAS, FOLCROSS

Mr. Thomas Fraser: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the volume of coke oven gas burned at the bleeder pipe at the coke ovens at Clyde Iron Works, Folcross, on the two days, 8th and 9th May.

Major Lloyd Georģ: The volume of coke oven gas bled at the coke ovens in question on 8th and 9th May amounted to 3,976,000 cubic feet. The gas available from the coke ovens is partly used in the steel works of Messrs. Colvilles. Owing to VE-holidays, however, the steel furnaces of this undertaking were idle on the days mentioned, and there was no outlet for the gas for the steel works.

Mr. Fraser: Who is responsible for this disgusting waste? Is there any means of using this gas, or is the waste inevitable in a system of private enterprise?

Major Lloyd Georģ: It has nothing to do with private enterprise. It is purely a question of whether the gas can be connected with the grid. In this case it is not connected. There is no alternative at present.

Mr. Fraser: Whose responsibility is it to see that the gas is connected with the grid?

Major Lloyd Georģ: My hon. Friend will appreciate that at present it is impossible to see that it is connected.

Oral Answers to Questions — PETROL

Leave Allowance

Colonel Clarke: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether any modifications have yet been decided on in the active-service leave allowance for petrol.

Major Lloyd Georģ: Yes, Sir. It has been decided that, as from 1st June, the active-service leave allowance of petrol for members of the Services coming to this country from overseas shall in future be available in respect of the cars of parents, as well as that of the applicant or his wife, or her husband, as the case may be. Further, it has been decided that a proportionately larger allowance may be granted in cases where leave is


granted for more than 28 days, provided that a maximum of 600 miles per annum is not exceeded.

Colonel Clarke: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that that decision will give great satisfaction?

Basic Ration

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether the basic ration of petrol will be in addition to that already allotted to certain persons in rural districts for shopping purposes in their nearest town.

Major Lloyd Georģ: Yes, Sir.

EIRE (NEUTRALITY)

Mr. C. S. Taylor: asked the Under-secretary of State for Dominion Affairs if he is satisfied that Eire preserved strict neutrality during the war in Europe.

The Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Emrys-Evans): I need not add to what the Prime Minister has said as to the danger involved to our security, and, indeed, our existence, by the attitude of neutrality adopted by the Eire Government in the war. There are, however, no grounds for suggesting that the Eire Government committed un-neutral acts to the disadvantage of this country.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Hosiery Needles (Imports)

Sir John Wardlaw-Milne: asked the President of the Board of Trade why hosiery needles are still being imported, when home producers have idle machinery and can supply all requirements.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Lyttelton): Owing mainly to shortage of suitable labour, home production of hosiery needles is insufficient to meet all requirements. I am trying to get the existing capacity manned up.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the meantime hosiery needles are being imported to a larger extent than is really necessary?

Mr. Lyttelton: I am aware that a large number are imported, but the number, I think, is not in excess of what is required.

Soothers

Mr. Murray: asked the President of the Board of Trade when mothers in the Spennymoor Division will be able to purchase babies soothers; is he aware that some months ago hon. Members were assured that supplies would be available in the shops, and up to the present time none has been available to retailers or the general public.

Mr. Lyttelton: The hon. Member is perhaps under a misapprehension, and is confusing soothers with teats. I have every sympathy with him. Soothers, however, are a means of deception to which, in view of the imminence of the General Election and the present scarcity of rubber, His Majesty's Government cannot lend themselves. The assurances that he, no doubt, has in mind were given in respect of teats, and have been carried out.

Mr. Murray: Is the Minister aware that his answer makes the position still more ridiculous? It does happen to be a question of teats. I have a letter saying that a woman has given birth to twins, and that she is unable to feed these two children. She has four bottles in the house, with one teat. [Laughter.] Hon. Members need not laugh. They ought to be in the homes of some of these people. Is the Minister aware that I saw these two children yesterday, and the mother told me that she had to scrape the teat of the bottle before she could feed the other children? What is the Minister going to do about a thing like that?

Mr. Lyttelton: The point of my answer is that the Board of Trade are releasing rubber for teats. We cannot adopt the same attitude with regard to soothers. If there are any cases where teats are in short supply, we shall be glad to look into them.

Mr. Shinwell: In view of the statement that babies soothers are intended for deceptive purposes, will they be part of the equipment of the Tory Party at the General Election?

A.R.P. Surplus Beddinģ (Disposal)

Sir H. Williams: asked the President of the Board of Trade what advice His Majesty's Government are giving to local authorities and to private individuals with regard to the disposal of mattresses, blankets, etc., which have been used in


air-raid shelters, having regard to the shortage of such goods for civilian purposes; and what steps are being taken to ensure the reconditioning and cleansing of all such goods before they are offered for sale.

Mr. Lyttelton: Local authorities have been requested to dispose of surplus stores, including surplus bedding, in accordance with the principles set out in the White Paper on the Disposal of Surplus Government Stores. In view of the present shortage of bedding, I hope that both local authorities and private firms who still hold stocks of blankets, mattresses, and other bedding formerly used for A.R.P. purposes, will release them for general consumption as quickly as possible. Used mattresses and pillows need reconditioning before being used again, and local authorities have, therefore, been asked to sell them only to firms who will recondition them. I hope that private firms will follow the same course.

Aero-Engine Factory, Liverpool

Mr. Kirby: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that Messrs. D. Napier and Sons are in the process of closing down their wartime factory at Liverpool, and that it is anticipated that some 7,000 workers will become redundant; and whether his Department has any scheme for the continued use of this modern and efficient factory and personnel that will prevent the threatened unemployment and assist in meeting the country's peace-time requirements.

Mr. Lyttelton: It is intended to continue aero-engine production permanently on a substantial scale in this factory, and arrangements are being made for civilian production in such parts of the factory as may be surplus.

Mr. Kirby: Will my right hon. Friend make the decision more clear in regard to the probable number of people to be employed there? Is he aware that the firm tell the workpeople one week about the number of people who are to be kept on, and then the next week they say that they do not know anything about the future?

Mr. Lyttelton: If the hon. Member will put the question down, I will give a more precise answer about the numbers. I do

not know as yet what numbers will be absorbed by the civilian production to which I have referred.

Mr. Kirby: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many people are going to be employed on aero-engine production?

Mr. Lyttelton: I cannot do that without notice.

Sir Alfred Beit: What are the grounds for assuming that directly a war factory is closed the employees will be without work? Is there not plenty of other employment available?

Russia (Enģlish Books)

Commander Kinģ-Hall: asked the President of the Board of Trade, whether he can give any particulars of the arrangement entered into between Messrs. Hutchinson and the Russian Government for the production of English books in Russia.

Mr. Lyttelton: The arrangement to which the hon. and gallant Member refers is, as far as this country is concerned, a private commercial one between Hutchinson & Co., Ltd., and the International Book Co., Ltd., of Moscow. It provides for the production in this country of Russian translations of English books for sale in the Soviet Union.

Commander Kinģ-Hall: As this would appear to be the only channel by which English books may enter Russia, does not the right hon. Gentleman feel it to be important that they should be representative of the 'books of this country? Do Messrs. Hutchinson represent all the publishers, or are they in association with them?

Mr. Lyttelton: The hon. and gallant Member's supplementary question seems to go a good deal beyond the responsibilities of the Board of Trade.

Major Lloyd: Could the right hon. Gentleman ensure that a certain proportion of these books are English dictionaries?

Repatriated Prisoners of War (Clothinģ Coupons)

General Sir Georģe Jeffreys: asked the President of the Board of Trade what are the arrangements regarding the issue of clothing coupons to returned prisoners of war; and whether he is aware that


many of these men, who are now on leave, are, owing to lack of coupons, deficient of various articles of clothing and particularly of pyjamas which are needed by men living with their families.

Mr. Lyttelton: Repatriated prisoners of war, who return to civilian life on release from the Services, receive civilian clothing coupons in the same way as other men released from the Forces. Repatriated prisoners or war who are not yet released may retain, for their own use, the twenty coupons issued to their next-of-kin for parcels by the Red Cross, or may apply to the Red Cross for the coupons if the next-of-kin has returned them.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, possibly owing to some mischance, many of these men have not got all these coupons, whatever the regulations may be, and that they are subject to very considerable discomfort through lack of such things as pyjamas and other articles, when they join their families?

Mr. Lyttelton: I hope the concession with regard to the 20 coupons will remedy the position to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers.

NATIONAL INSURANCE SCHEME (COUNTY POLICE FORCES)

Colonel Viscount Suirdale: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether members of county police forces will come under the National Insurance Scheme for pensions for themselves, their wives or their widows, or whether present arrangements will continue in force.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. Hore-Belisha): I would refer my Noble Friend to paragraphs 38 to 42 of Part 1 of the White Paper on Social Insurance, which set out the position.

Mr. Shinwell: Could not the right hon. Gentleman explain the matter a little more closely? Why should we always be referred, not to Acts of Parliament, but to White Papers, and particularly to White Papers that are not going to be implemented by the Tory Party?

Mr. Hore-Belisha: I thought the reference might strike a responsive chord. The White Paper is certainly going to be implemented by the Government when it is returned.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

Regimental Bands

Sir G. Jeffreys: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will arrange for the bands of units serving on the Continent of Europe to be sent out to join those units as soon as possible.

The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Griģģ): Owing to the expansion of the Army and the relative shortage of instruments and musicians, it is considered better to pool the existing bands for the benefit of the Army as a whole and not necessarily to attach them to the regiments with which they are associated. Nine bands are at present permanently stationed with the B.L.A., and five are there on tour.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Is my right hon. Friend aware that bands have a very definite value in maintaining the morale of the troops, and is he also aware that there are cases of a number of battalions of the same regiment serving together? Could not their band be sent to one of them?

Sir J. Griģģ: In the first place, of course, I am aware that it is a morale-raising factor to let the soldiers hear the bands, and that is why I have taken steps to see that as many as possible hear bands, and that the bands are not confined only to their own regiments. As regards the second supplementary question, the band in which I think my hon. and gallant Friend is particularly interested is at present on tour in the B.L.A., and I hope that the group of regiments in which he is interested will hear it.

General Election

Sir Geoffrey Mander: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is satisfied that the arrangements for placing the names of repatriated prisoners of war on the electoral register are working well; and what is the approximate percentage so registered.

Sir J. Griģģ: Each repatriated prisoner of war who returns to this country is given an opportunity as soon as he arrives, whether he goes to a reception camp or a hospital, to complete an Armed Forces Declaration Card (Army Form B 2626). These declarations can be received by Registration Officers up to four days


before Nomination Day, for the purpose of the forthcoming General Election. Special measures have also been taken to obtain declarations from prisoners of war arriving in Italy, who may not reach this country in time to register here. I believe these arrangements are working well, but as the completion of the card is a voluntary matter on the part of the individual registering, and as he can post the card at his own convenience, I have no means of knowing even the approximate percentage of those who have availed themselves of the arrangements made.

Mr. Driberģ: If repatriated prisoners of war are not at their own homes at the time of the election, but are in this country, will they have to vote by proxy, or will they be able to vote by post?

Sir J. Griģģ: That is a matter of their applying for the postal registration facilities, and these are open up to four days before nomination day, which is still some time off.

Mr. Driberģ: Are they also told about these facilities?

Sir J. Griģģ: To the best of my belief, yes; instruction after instruction has been sent to them.

Mr. Pritt: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that AFB 2639, the form applicable to troops voting by post, has not been made available for large numbers of Servicemen in the United Kingdom; and what arrangements he is making to ensure its early and complete availability.

Sir J. Griģģ: On 28th April, an instruction was issued to all units in the United Kingdom telling them that supplies of the form were available, and to obtain the quantities they required. Two reminders have since been sent out to ensure compliance with the instruction.

Mr. Pritt: May I ask whether, as it sounds that the War Office is doing its best, the various units are playing up by applying for the forms?

Sir J. Griģģ: A fair question merits a fair answer. I think there is some evidence that the staffs of some units were caught well off the mark, but I hope and believe that they have been reminded of their obligations pretty effectively.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Will nurses in hospitals also have it?

Sir J. Griģģ: It may be my stupidity, but I am unable to distinguish any connection between that question and the one originally asked.

Mr. Huģh Lawson: Will the right hon. Gentleman say if he has any idea what proportion of the men in this country have so far filled up this application?

Sir J. Griģģ: The hon. Member has a Question on that point later on the Order Paper. He is trying to get "most-favoured-nation" treatment.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, as the previous reminders apparently have not done what they were intended to do, a further reminder may be sent, in view of the importance of this form?

Sir J. Griģģ: I think my hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. All the information at my disposal goes to show that the reminders have been effective.

Repatriated Prisoners of War

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Secretary of State for War whether members of the Army who have been in German prison camps or working on forced labour in Germany for long periods, and who had suffered physically and mentally, can claim their discharge on arrival in this country.

Sir J. Griģģ: I would refer my hon. Friend to the replies I gave the hon. Member for London University (Sir E. Graham-Little) on 3rd May and the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Kendall) on 8th May.

Sir W. Smithers: In view of the great suffering that some of these prisoners have gone through, in some cases to my own knowledge, will the right hon. Gentleman do his best to give them relief as soon as possible?

Sir J. Griģģ: I would be very grateful if my hon. Friend will read the answers to which I have referred. I dealt with the question at some length and as sym-pathetically as I possibly could, and I earnestly think that their requirements have been fulfilled.

Rye Bay (Battery Firinģ)

Mr. E. P. Smith: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will make arrangements to avoid the need for the batteries at Lydd firing into the sea at Rye Bay, in view of the fact that Rye Bay is the richest fishing ground in the area and the practice endangers the lives of the fishermen who have to trawl there.

Sir J. Griģģ: This area has recently been used for special trials but I understand that it will be used very rarely in future. The local authorities are warned when firing is to take place and military lookouts are posted to watch for shipping. If danger to it becomes imminent, firing is at once stopped.

Dunģeness (Controlled Area)

Mr. E. P. Smith: asked the Secretary of State for War if he will now lift the ban imposed on near relatives visiting their kinsmen in Dungeness.

Sir J. Griģģ: The by-laws restricting entry to the Dungeness controlled area will be revoked as soon as it is safe to do so. In the meantime, persons who can satisfy the local military authorities that they are relatives or residents in the area, will be permitted to enter it to visit them.

Mr. Smith: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the area of Dungeness is like a vast concentration camp and that, though I have a pass to take me anywhere in my division, it took me three-quarters of an hour to get into it the other night and that while I was there three men home on leave were refused admittance?

Sir J. Griģģ: I do not wish to be accused of undue subservience to the hon. Member or to his constituents, but the defence laws are concerned not with security in the ordinary accepted sense of the word but with the safety of the persons entering the area.

Mr. E. P. Smith: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will take steps to provide main water for the inhabitants of Dungeness whose wells have been poisoned by the seepage of Army petrol and who, at present, have to depend upon supplies brought every three days or so and deposited in tanks scattered haphazard about the village.

Sir J. Griģģ: This matter is under consideration with the local authority and the Ministry of Health.

Mr. Smith: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the village of Dungeness had some of the finest natural water in Kent and will he do his utmost to provide all the inhabitants with main water?

Sir J. Griģģ: The intention of my answer was to indicate that the restoration of the previous delectable position was a matter which we were pursuing as quickly as possible.

Sir H. Williams: Can my right hon. Friend say why petrol has been allowed to seep into these wells? Why could not it be kept in a proper place in containers?

Sir J. Griģģ: I think that if my hon. Friend had studied or listened to certain accounts of the defensive measures taken to protect this island against invasion in the earlier stages of our fortunes or misfortunes, he would have gathered the answer from that himself.

Mr. Kirkwood: That is the way to talk to the hon. Member.

Personnel, Far East (Welfare)

Major Nield: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is now satisfied that all possible steps are being taken to allow local leave to members of the Forces serving in the Far East and to provide them with leave centres, entertainments, particularly E.N.S.A. shows, comforts and welfare generally.

Mr. Palmer: asked the Secretary of State for War whether steps are being taken to introduce N.A.A.F.I. canteens for the use of British troops in the Far East in place of local service contractors.

Earl Winterton: asked the Secretary of State for War if the improvements recently announced by the Prime Minister for the comfort and welfare of the troops in India and Burma have now been carried out in full.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Secretary of State for War if he can make any further report on the welfare conditions available to the troops in Burma; and what organisation is being prepared for the extension of this service to China and


other Far Eastern areas into which our naval, air and Army forces will enter in the progressive advance upon Japan.

Sir J. Griģģ: I hope hon. Members will allow me to deal with all these welfare matters in the course of the Debate on Friday at greater length—and I hope more satisfactorily—than is possible in replies to Questions.

Major Nield: Can my right hon. Friend say, at this stage, how many E.N.S.A. parties there are operating in forward areas of S.E.A.C.?

Sir J. Griģģ: No, Sir, but I will try to get my hon. and gallant Friend an answer to that question before the Debate on Friday.

Officers (Overseas Postinģ)

Mr. John Duģdale: asked the Secretary of State for War whether officers who have served more than two years and five months in a tropical climate and are now stationed in this country, may still be sent overseas.

Sir J. Griģģ: Yes, Sir, subject to medical examination and in the case of the Far East to their having had at least six months at home.

Mr. Duģdale: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman why, as I understand is the case, officers have to be under a rather stricter obligation than the men? Why are they not allowed the same rights as the men?

Sir J. Griģģ: I have never yet heard it suggested that there was not upon officers a rather stricter obligation than on the men, and that if sacrifices had to be made, they should not be made more readily by officers than by the men.

Overseas Service (Home Leave and Welfare)

Lieut.-Colonel Profumo: asked the Secretary of State for War (1) whether he will examine the possibilities of a mare extensive use of Allied 'bomber aircraft as a means of transport, in order to increase the present scale of home leave from the Mediterranean and the Far East;
(2) whether the Government has now been able to make such adjustments to the forces occupying Germany and Italy as to allow a reduction of the qualifying

period of service overseas for tine Python repatriation scheme;
(3) whether, since there are no longer any military operations in, the European theatre, he will take steps to ensure that troops who have served long periods in the M.E.F. and C.M.F. and have since been transferred to the B.L.A. without receiving the period of home leave to which they are entitled, shall be granted more than a week's leave on their first return to this country.

Mr. T. J. Brooks: asked the Secretary of State for War, now that the European war is at an end if he will consider reducing by one year the period of ser vice abroad, particularly in the S.E.A.C, in Assam and Burma; and why men who have served over three years in these districts now that their repatriation is imminent have had their disembarkation leave reduced from 28 days to 21 days.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that men who fought with the 50th (N) Division in North Africa, were in the invasion of Sicily, have seen service in Europe from D plus six, including the Nijmegen salient and are in fairly early release groups, have been warned for service in the Far East; and if he will, in the light of these facts, say what limitations as to age, release group and fighting service overseas are applied before men are drafted to the Far East.

Mr. McNeil: asked the Secretary of State for War if he has now been able to reduce the qualifying period for the Python leave scheme to three years or less.

Major Woollcy: asked the Secretary of State for War what arrangements are now being made to provide additional home leave for those men now serving overseas.

Mr. Palmer: asked the Secretary of State for War whether steps are being taken to make use of the rail route from Italy to facilitate an increase in the volume of home leave for Army personnel serving there.

Mr. Mathers: asked the Secretary of State for War whether the amount of shipping available will enable troops serving overseas to return earlier to this country; and whether he will state the


maximum periods of service now applicable to the different theatres of operations.

Mr. Cluse: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the feeling amongst the Servicemen abroad that they are being unfairly treated in the allocation of home leave; that many have served long periods without a break; that some are performing duties not vital to the war effort; and will he do his utmost to facilitate the granting of leave to those who have served long periods abroad.

Mr. Oliver: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the general dissatisfaction among the Forces in the C.M.F., M.E.F. and S.E.A.C of his refusal to shorten the period of service qualifying for home leave, having regard to the cessation of hostilities in the West; and whether there is any immediate prospect of a revision of the period of 4½ to 3 years.

Mr. Lipson: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware of the disappointment felt by men who have served in North Africa and Italy and have been away four years without home leave; and will he now implement the undertaking that, after the war in Europe had been won, overseas service would be reduced to three years.

Mr. Francis Watt: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that the absence of any home leave for the troops in Italy is causing acute dissatisfaction among them; and will he take steps to have home leave for these men introduced as soon as possible.

Sir H. Williams: asked the Secretary of State for War when the troops who have been serving in the Mediterranean zone four years or over will be repatriated, and when those who have been serving three years or more will be repatriated.

Mr. Walter Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the cessation of hostilities in Europe, the necessary adjustments have yet been made to enable a reduction in the length of service overseas to be made.

Mr. Viant: asked the Secretary of State for War why men who have served in the M.E.F. and C.M.F. for four years and four months and were then posted to

Germany just before the war ceased, are excluded from the Python leave scheme.

Mr. C. S. Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for War whether it is now possible to reduce the length of over seas service in the C.M.F.

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: asked the Secretary of State for War, in view of the termination of hostilities in Europe, what are the lastest arrangements for home leave for men in the B.L.A.

Sir J. Griģģ: It is very difficult to deal with all these matters in reply to Questions and I hope hon. Members will allow me to deal with them at greater length in the course of the Debate on Friday.

Lieut.-Colonel Profumo: Will my right hon. Friend be in a position to give an answer to this Question in the Debate on Friday?

Sir J. Griģģ: Having contracted to make a statement on these things, there is a certain obligation that I should say something.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: As one of those Questions is mine may I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker? The right hon. Gentleman has chosen a most unusual procedure, and may I ask whether there is anything we can do now to get answers to our Questions?

Sir J. Griģģ: I have told the hon. Member that I have every intention of answering, to the best of my ability, all these Questions in a general statement which I will make on Friday.

Germany (Non-Fraternisation Order)

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for War to what extent he proposes to modify the non-fraternisation order in Germany at an early date; and whether measures are being taken to adopt equivalent standards governing the relationships of the troops with the civil population in the different zones of occupation.

Sir J. Griģģ: The question will be kept under review in consultation with the other members of the quadripartite Control Council.

Mr. Harvey: While that question is under review, would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that an order, which is justifiable during military operations and


in a period of uncertainty afterwards, may be a very great danger as well as a great hardship on troops if it is continued?

Sir J. Griģģ: I will certainly bear it in mind, but I have not the slightest intention of taking unilateral action.

Mr. Rhys Davies: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is true that this non-fraternisation imposition is not carried out in the Russian zone of occupation, and, if that is so, why distinguish between them?

Sir J. Griģģ: I think the hon. Member speaks in some ignorance of what is going on in the Russian zone. Anyhow, my answer was that I think it is a matter for the Control Commission to bring action in the war zones into some sort of co-ordination.

Mr. Stokes: Has the Secretary of State for War observed the reports from reputable newspaper correspondents on the most unsatisfactory working disorder, and is he aware of the statement that there was a Russian-German football match during the week-end?

Sir J. Griģģ: Yes, Sir.

Sir G. Jeffreys: Is my right hon. Friend aware that during the Rhine occupation at the end of the last war the disregard of the fraternisation order and its relaxation had the most prejudicial effect on the authority of the Army in the Rhineland?

Sir J. Griģģ: My answer to that question is the same as to the other Questions, that being, on the eve, as one hopes, of an effective Control Commission in which four nations take their place, it is extremely desirable that these matters should be regulated by the four nations in agreement.

Mr. A. Bevan: Have His Majesty's Government made representations on this matter to the Control Commission and, if so, what is the nature of them?

Sir J. Griģģ: The Control Commission has not yet been set up. To the best of my hope and belief it will be set up this very day. After that, I have not the slightest doubt that this is one of the questions which will obtrude itself upon the Control Commission without any reminders from me.

Mr. Bevan: But is it the intention of His Majesty's Government to make any representations whatsoever on this matter, as we are represented on the Control Commission, and is it not a fact that discipline in our Army is breaking down as a consequence of this order?

Sir J. Griģģ: The answer to the second question is, certainly not.

Mr. Bevan: I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman.

Sir J. Griģģ: The hon. Gentleman knows, of course.

Mr. Bevan: We know more than you do about it.

Sir J. Griģģ: The hon. Member's knowledge of the Army is very deep, prolonged and vast. The answer to the first part is, as I have already said, that this question is bound to obtrude itself on the attention of the Control Commission as soon as it is set up.

AUSTRIAN PRISONERS OF WAR

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Secretary of State for War whether Austrian prisoners of war are being segregated from German prisoners; and whether any steps are being taken to send those who are not Nazis to Austria.

Sir J. Griģģ: The answer to the first part of the Question is "Yes, Sir," and to the second part "Not yet."

Mr. Strauss: Can we take it that steps will be taken as soon as possible to send back to Austria key workers, and, particularly, agricultural workers, who are not Nazis, in order to stave off the threatened food shortage?

Sir J. Griģģ: I cannot give any guarantee on this subject, because "as soon as possible" is always read to mean "at once."

Mr. Stokes: Oh, no.

Sir J. Griģģ: All right, then; it either means "at once" or it means nothing. I am certainly not in a position to give the assurance "at once," and I am unwilling to give a meaningless assurance. There are lots of things concerning the movement of prisoners which have to be taken into account, and all I can say to the hon. Member is that these things are in mind and will be borne in mind.

NAZI LEADERS (PRISON TREATMENT)

Colonel Viscount Suirdale: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will give an assurance that all Nazi leaders, of whatever rank, are now imprisoned in ordinary prison cages or other prisons and not allowed the facility of house arrest; whether he will issue instructions that no special facilities, such as the right to have special food obtained for them, will be allowed; and that they will be treated strictly as prisoners who are only entitled to the minimum amenities consistent with the rules of war.

Sir J. Griģģ: All German prisoners of war of whatever rank are accommodated in this country in prisoner of war camps and none receive any special facilities. The rations provided for them are to the scales given in my reply in this House on 29th May and none are allowed to obtain special food. They are treated strictly as prisoners of war in accordance with the rules of war.

Viscount Suirdale: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether Field Marshal Goering is covered by that answer?

Sir J. Griģģ: I have enough to look after without being responsible for other people's affairs. Field Marshal Goering is not in the custody of the British Forces.

WAR DECORATIONS AND MEDALS

Captain Lonģhurst: asked the Prime Minister to what medal men who have served in Paiforce will be entitled.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): I am still not satisfied with the arrangements which have been made on this subject up to the present time, and therefore I will ask my hon. and gallant Friend to allow me to pursue my task which involves many minor complications.

Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that he has not much time, if he is to get these things settled before he leaves that side of the House?

The Prime Minister: That is counting chickens before they are hatched.

Sir H. Williams: asked the Prime Minister if military permanent staffs of hospital ships and troopships will be

eligible for the Atlantic Star, Africa Star and Italy Star, etc., on the same terms as the Merchant Navy personnel.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. But no other doors can be opened on this account.

Captain Peter Macdonald: asked the Prime Minister whether it is proposed to award any medal to the large numbers of Allied troops who served in this country during the time that their own countries were occupied by the enemy; and whether, in view of the fact that large numbers of such men on returning home are without visible record of their services overseas, he will arrange for this matter to be considered at an early opportunity.

The Prime Minister: This requires further examination. You move on one point and a dozen other questions come up for decision. However, I should like to examine this further. The White Paper covers many millions of cases, and we are anxious to get the ribbons out as fast as possible to the people who want to enjoy them. Meanwhile, we are tidying up minor matters or, rather, quite important matters which are not within the scope of the White Paper.

Captain Macdonald: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a large number of our Allies who served in their own ships over here, are now returning to their own countries, and find that their absence during the period of the occupation of their countries is sometimes looked upon with suspicion, and they feel that they ought to have some means of showing the services they have rendered to their countries during the time they were away?

The Prime Minister: That is an argument for haste, and I quite agree with it.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that the chances are that a Victory Medal will eventually be struck, and that these men will be covered by that?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider awarding to the volunteers of the Royal Engineers who formed the bomb-disposal sections in 1940–41 a silver rosette to the 1939–45 Star, as these men did valuable work, suffered heavy casualties, and have, so far, had no special recognition.

The Prime Minister: I have given much thought to this matter. I regard these services among the very highest that have been rendered to this country. Various proposals have been made, but I am not satisfied that the recognition is sufficient. I shall devote myself to this matter as opportunity permits; but as it affects so small a number of people, it must not arrest the main flow of decorations to so many who have done so well.

ALLIED CONTROL COMMISSION (GERMAN INDUSTRY)

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Prime Minister the broad policy that is to be carried out by the Control Commission for German industry; who are the British members and the concerns with which they are or were associated; what consultations have been held with employers' organisations or trade associations in this country; if plans are being considered about the relationship between British and German industry and about the selection of industrialists to visit Germany; and whether German undertakings could be utilised as sub-contractors to British concerns.

The Prime Minister: All this will be looked into very carefully, but not to-day. The Economic Division, which will be part of the British element of the Commission concerned with industry, is at work upon the whole subject.

Mr. Smith: But is the Prime Minister aware that already consultations are taking place with the employers' associations in this country, and that I have a circular in my hand proving that they have been in consultation with the Control Commission? Will the Prime Minister give an undertaking that no private profit will be allowed to be made out of any transactions carried out by the Control Commission? Will he, further, give an assurance that no British concern will be allowed to use German firms as subcontractors?

The Prime Minister: I could not possibly give an instructive answer to the House on all those very complicated questions. I am sure we all agree that no profit should ever be made by any British person out of any such matter. I can take that as a starting point but I cannot guarantee that a loss must be made.

Mr. Smith: What is the explanation of these consultations that have been taking place?

Hon. Members: What consultations?

Mr. Smith: The consultations between the Employers' Association, the British Engineers' Association, and the British element of the Control Commission. Can we be given an assurance that nothing of the character raised in the question will be carried out without consulting Parliament?

The Prime Minister: I began my answer by saying that all this will be looked into very carefully, and I should be glad if my hon. opponent will kindly send me the paper he mentions, and I will have it sent to the proper authority. Of course, there is vast confusion reigning over the whole of Germany at the present time. It can only be steadied up reasonably, but I agree that the matters touched upon here by the hon. Gentleman require to be defined in terms of principle.

Mr. A. Bevan: Have His Majesty's Government reached any directives to the Control Commission on these matters because, on this side of the House, some of us have seen some of these, at least provisional directives; and when is the House to be told what they are?

The Prime Minister: We have been stricken recently by the departure of many of our friends with whom we were studying these matters in concert, but I certainty see the need for a directive on these matters.

Mr. Ernest Bevin: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether his last remark is a suggestion that his late colleagues who have left his Government have shown private papers to persons outside the Government?

The Prime Minister: I cannot conceive, even by the most energetic exercise of my imagination, how any such train of thought could have arisen in my right hon. Friend's mind.

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (REDUNDANCY)

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Prime Minister whether he will now make a statement regarding the closing down and


liquidation of redundant Ministries and Departments, in view of the cessation of the European war.

The Prime Minister: The first steps to this end have now been taken and three Ministries—Economic Warfare, Home Security and Production—are either being wound up or swallowed up. Further action in the same direction—and I hope on a larger scale—will follow as soon as possible.

Mr. De la Bère: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I shall spare him my supplementary question in view of his magnificent broadcast yesterday?

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Will the right hon. Gentleman in future consider the possibility, when he liquidates the Ministry, of liquidating the Minister as well?

The Prime Minister: The net reduction of Ministers must be continued.

Mr. Pritt: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider making suitably public the fact that his broadcast has at any rate pleased the hon. Member for Evesham (Mr. De la Bère)?

The Prime Minister: I hope I may also make public that it has displeased the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt).

Mr. Pritt: Would the right hon. Gentleman also accept the assurance of myself and many hon. Members on this side that we think it is worth 50 seats to us?

RUSSIA (FLEET TRANSFERS)

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Prime Minister whether he is now able to give information as to the transfer of vessels from the British Navy to the Red Fleet.

The Prime Minister: This is a very long answer, Mr. Speaker, so with your permission and that of the House I propose to give it as a statement after the Question period has ended, as there are so many other Questions to be answered.

Later—

The Prime Minister: After the Italian Fleet had surrendered the Soviet Government raised with the Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States the question of handing over to the Soviet Government a number of Italian war-

ships and merchant ships. The Soviet Government represented that they had waged war against Italy in alliance with His Majesty's Government and the United States Government, and that the Soviet Navy would make good use of any ships so handed over for prosecuting the war against the principal enemy, Nazi Germany.
The ships for which the Soviet Government asked were:

1 Battleship
1 Cruiser
8 Destroyers
4 Submarines
40,000 tons of merchant shipping.

These ships the United Kingdom and United States Governments agreed, at the Teheran Conference, should be made available to the Soviet Navy.
His Majesty's Government later pointed out however that the Italian ships were built to sail in the temperate waters of the Mediterranean and were unsuitable for immediate service in the severe climate of the Northern Seas where the Soviet Government proposed to employ them. It had moreover to be borne in mind that the Italian Navy had sailed forth from their ports to join the Allies in defiance of German orders, that they were pursued by aircraft and suffered losses in vessels and personnel, including one modern capital ship. Their surrender was received by Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham in Malta harbour and must be considered an honourable naval event. The accession of the Italian Fleet to the naval forces of the Allies was, at that time, definitely helpful. Some served in the Mediterranean as warships, others as warship transports, and a good deal of valuable work was done by them. They also served in the Indian Ocean and on anti-blockade runner patrols in the Atlantic. Their dockyards rendered important service.
The question then arose of how to meet the very reasonable and natural request of Soviet Russia. His Majesty's Government did not wish to see Italy, at that moment, deprived of its Navy, which was an essential part of the national life we are resolved to preserve. We therefore proposed that the request of Soviet Russia for this share of the Italian Navy should be met by the United States and Great Britain. Accordingly it was further agreed that the Italian ships should, for


the time being, continue to serve the Allied cause, which they had done with discipline and vigour, and that an equivalent number of British or American warships and merchant ships should be delivered to the Soviet Navy on temporary loan. This leaves the issue of the disposition of the Italian Navy to the Peace Conference, which I hope will take place some time or other, it being quite usual that wars should be followed by Peace Conferences.
The following action was therefore taken. Half the merchant shipping and all the warships, with the exception of the United States cruiser "Milwauki," were provided by His Majesty's Government. The British warships handed over to the Soviets were the battleship "Royal Sovereign," eight ex-American ("Town" Class) destroyers and four modern submarines. A further non-operational "Town" Class destroyer was made available to provide spare parts. Full details, including names and tonnages of all these ships, will be circulated in the Official Report.
The Russian sailors came to the United Kingdom in the spring of 1944 and spent some weeks here working up the ships preparatory to taking them to North Russia. When this important Fleet of 13 vessels sailed into the Russian harbour of Murmansk, a good impression was made upon our Soviet Ally, and I received a message of thanks from Marshal Stalin himself. I feel bound to state that I take full personal responsibility for this transaction. The units of the Royal Navy have since then been operating as part of the Red Fleet. The destroyer "Churchill" and submarine "Sunfish" have been lost on active service and the remaining ships will continue on loan to the Soviet Government until otherwise agreed between the two Governments.

Mr. Rhys Davies: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that very explicit statement, which ventilates a problem that has troubled a good number of people, may I ask whether the time will arise when there will be a settlement of this account between the two fleets; and whether the House will be able to discuss this matter?

The Prime Minister: I certainly think the House of Commons should discuss this matter, very likely when the next

Navy Estimates are presented, or even earlier, but it will be a new House of Commons. So far as the settling of accounts is concerned, I consider that the heroic contribution of the Soviet Armies to the breaking of the spirit of the German Army, and driving them into rout and ruin, constitutes a claim against which we should not attempt to place the provision of these particular vessels on loan.

Mr. Ivor Thomas: Now that operations against Germany have ceased and there is so much need for shipping in the Pacific, has not the time come to consider the return of these vessels to the Royal Navy for use in the war against Japan?

The Prime Minister: These would not be vessels that we should use in the war against Japan. Admittedly, they are of an older type, and we send to the other side of the world only the best and newest ships, because the cost and difficulties of maintaining them there make it worth while to send only the best and newest, and the Americans would not thank us if we brought older vessels. On the other hand, I could not think of anything so ungracious at this moment as to suggest to the Soviet Government by withdrawing these vessels that we had any objection whatever to their having a fleet and training their men for a powerful fleet and an adequate mercantile marine free to traverse all the oceans of the world.

Mr. Shinwell: When the right hon. Gentleman says that he accepts personal responsibility for what was, undoubtedly, at the time a very fine gesture, would he agree that this was a War Cabinet decision?

The Prime Minister: Certainly it was. All the actions which I have taken are War Cabinet decisions, and when I was ill at Marakeesh I telegraphed this project home to my colleagues and they all accepted the proposal, but as I was the principal inaugurator of it, and as it seemed to be coming under question, I thought I would say that I would take responsibility on account of my prominence in the matter. But my colleagues are equally bound with me in this, which was a very serious step, involving the transfer of so many of His Majesty's ships; and as the House has taken it so well, I invite former colleagues on the opposite Bench to share the credit.

Following are the details:


List of Ships Transferred.


Battleships—


H.M.S. Royal Sovereign
…
29,150 tons


Destroyers—


H.M.S. Brighton
…
Town class 1,090 tons


H.M.S. Chelsea
…


H.M.S. Churchill
…


H.M.S. Georgetown
…


H.M.S. Leamington
…


H.M.S. Richmond
…


H.M.S. Roxborough
…


H.M.S. St. Albans
…


Destroyer—


(non-operational) H.M.S. Lincoln




Submarines—


H.M.S. Sunfish
…
768 tons


H.M.S. Unbroken
…
646 tons


H.M.S. Unison
…


H.M.S. Ursula
…

In addition to the warships 20,000 tons of merchant shipping was also transferred.

RELIEF AND RECONSTRUCTION (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)

Mr. Graham White: asked the Prime Minister to which Minister Questions on general policy regarding relief and reconstruction should be addressed.

The Prime Minister: The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

TEHERAN AND YALTA DECISIONS (PUBLICATION)

Mr. Stokes: asked the Prime Minister whether he will publish as a White Paper the full decisions arrived at both at Teheran and Yalta with regard to the readjustment of territory in Europe, the treatment of enemy peoples, the reparations to be made by enemy countries and the zones of influence allocated to each of the Great Powers, as also any decisions with regard to the use of slave labour for reparations purposes.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir.

Mr. Stokes: Does the Prime Minister recollect the categorical statement made in this House by the Foreign Secretary that no secret engagements of any kind have been entered into; and if that is so, will he tell the House what is the objection to publishing the information now?

The Prime Minister: I do not think it would be a good thing.

Mr. Kirkwood: The right hon. Gentleman is not giving very much away.

SCOTTISH WAR CASUALTIES

Mr. McIntyre: asked the Prime Minister the numbers of Scots casualties since 3rd September, 1939.

The Prime Minister: A great deal of time and trouble would be required to make an exact analysis of the Scottish casualties. They served in many regiments and divisions besides those of their own countrymen, and many Scottish regiments contained a large proportion of English. We have not got a foundation list of soldiers by birth, but only by residence. Surely it is enough to say that no more splendid record exists than that of the Scottish nation in this war, although one might sometimes have a word for London and a few other places in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Mr. McIntyre: Would it not be possible to give the figure for those domiciled in Scotland in 1939?

The Prime Minister: I should be the last to wish to keep under a leaf the glories of Scotland, but I cannot undertake, without careful consideration, to attempt to make these very difficult analyses of race. Suffice it to say that they have been the first, or one of the first, in every famous engagement.

SCOTTISH HOME RULE

Mr. McIntyre: asked the Prime Minister if he will arrange for a referendum in Scotland on the question of the establishing of a democratic legislature in that country, through which the Scottish people would be able to control effectively the affairs of their own country.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir.

Mr. Shinwell: Has not the right hon. Gentleman recently expressed a liking for a referendum in another connection? Why does he reject this modest plea on behalf of Scotland?

The Prime Minister: After the cruel denunciation which compared it to Hitler and Mussolini, I certainly could not advise its application to Scottish affairs.

Mr. Shinwell: Why does the right hon. Gentleman accept defeat of that kind so lightly? Why does he not stand up to us?

SYRIA AND LEBANON (SITUATION)

Mr. Attlee: I wish to ask the Prime Minister a Question, of which I have given him Private Notice, and in putting that Question, perhaps I may be allowed to express our regret at the illness of the Foreign Secretary and our hope that he may soon be restored to health. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] My question is whether the Prime Minister has any statement to make on the position in Syria.

The Prime Minister: When regrettable incidents like those in Syria occur between nations so firmly attached to one another as are the French and British, and whose fortunes are so closely interwoven, it is nearly always a case of "the least said the better." On the other hand, I am assured that harm would be done by leaving some of the statements in General de Gaulle's speech to the Press of 2nd June unanswered by His Majesty's Government; and I feel also that the House of Commons would expect to be authoritatively informed.
The sense of General de Gaulle's speech was to suggest that the whole trouble in the Levant was due to British interference. I think my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has already made it clear that so far from stirring up agitation in the Levant States our whole influence has been used in precisely the other direction.
The most strenuous and, I think, successful efforts have been made by His Majesty's Minister in Beirut to produce a calmer atmosphere in which negotiations could be conducted for a settlement of outstanding questions between France and the Levant States. I myself impressed upon the President of Syria most strongly the need for a peaceful settlement when I saw him in Cairo in February. We were successful in persuading the Levant States to open negotiations, which they had previously been unwilling to do. They asked the French for their proposals. That was last February. While General Beynet was still in Paris awaiting his instructions it became known in the Levant in April that the French intended to send reinforcements. The Syrian and Lebanese Governments were greatly disturbed by the delay in receiving the French proposals and also by the prospect of reinforcements arriving. We had

already represented to the French Government that the arrival of reinforcements, however small, was bound to be misunderstood as a means of pressure in these negotiations and to have serious repercussions, but our representations did not meet with success.
On 4th May, at the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, I sent a friendly personal message to General de Gaulle, who had expressed to our Ambassador his concern as to our ultimate intentions in the Levant States. I explained, as I have done on many occasions, that we had absolutely no ambitions there of any kind. We want only to be treated just like any other country would be treated. We seek no territory or any kind of advantage there that is not given to all the other nations of the world. I also explained that we had recognised France's special position in the Levant. That does not mean that we undertake to enforce that special position. We shall be no obstacle to it, either at the council table or in any other way. But, I explained, our commitments and duties extended throughout the Middle East where our main task was to ensure that Allied war communications were kept secure from interruption and disturbance. We could not, therefore, disregard events in the Levant States. His Majesty's Government had no designs against French interests in Syria and Lebanon and I was willing, I told General de Gaulle, to order a withdrawal of all British troops from Syria and the Lebanon the moment a treaty had been concluded and was in operation between the French Government and the Syrian and Lebanese Governments.
From this point of view, I expressed the opinion that it would be a great pity if the sending in of reinforcements above those which were needed as replacements were to cause unrest or a rise of temperature. I urged that the reinforcing of French troops at this moment when the Levant States had been waiting for treaty proposals would give the impression that the French were preparing a settlement to be concluded under duress and thus poison the atmosphere for the negotiations which were about to begin. General de Gaulle replied that General Beynet, the French Delegate-General, was returning with instructions to open negotiations but made no reference to the question of French reinforcements. When these


arrived the effect was as we had feared and as we had warned him would be the case.
On 12th May, General Beynet returned to Beirut and started his discussions with the Syrian and Lebanese Governments. They informed him that they were prepared to negotiate, but not if reinforcements arrived. In spite of this and of our representations—I might almost have said entreaties, because it would have been no exaggeration—French Forces began to arrive on 17th May and on account of that and because the Levant States considered that the French proposals went further than they were prepared to discuss, the Syrian and Lebanese Governments broke off negotiations.
The internal situation became very tense. In the towns of Damascus, Beirut and Tripoli the bazaars and shops were closed on 19th May and there were demonstrations in Damascus involving some firing from the grounds of the French hospital. About a dozen people were injured but none were killed. On the next day, 20th May, a serious riot took place at Aleppo. Three French soldiers were killed and some injured. French armoured cars entered the town and cleared the streets after a good deal of firing. It was estimated that at least ten civilians were killed and 30 injured. In all the main towns in Syria the bazaars remained closed for some days, and in Aleppo both the Syrian gendarmerie and French troops patrolled the town. In the Lebanon the towns of Beirut and Tripoli re-opened their shops on 23rd May following an appeal by the Lebanese Government to the population to carry on their business and to leave it to the Government to defend Lebanese independence.
Throughout these events we constantly counselled patience on both sides, and we were endeavouring to arrange diplomatic discussions at which the whole situation produced by the breakdown of negotiations could be discussed and if possible settled. The Syrian Government appealed earnestly to us to supply further arms for the gendarmerie to enable them to keep order in spite of the popular excitement. They could, they said, retain control of the situation provided the population were not unduly excited by too ostentatious

French military precautions and provided that the gendarmerie, who were becoming tired, were reinforced. Nevertheless the French authorities persisted in their objection to our supplying any further arms to the Syrian gendarmerie for their reinforcements, presumably because they were afraid they might be used against themselves. By 24th May the French had had to evacuate their troops from the citadel in Aleppo, but. disorder was feared in the process and the French General threatened to shell the town if any shot were fired.
On 25th May His Majesty's Minister was instructed by the Foreign Office to represent to the Syrian Government at once that it was essential that they should maintain control of the situation, especially at Homs and Hama where great tension had developed. Strong representations were also made in Paris and to the French Embassy in London drawing attention to the extremely tense local situation and urging that the French Government should suspend the despatch of the contemplated further reinforcements. It was pointed out that French armoured car and lorry patrols continued in the streets of Aleppo and Damascus, that aircraft were flying low over the mosques during the hour of prayer, and machine guns were prominently placed on the roofs of buildings. This naturally excited the population. We represented very strongly the unfortunate consequences which further disturbances might have in the Middle East as a whole, which incidentally would affect the communications of the war with Japan.
Serious fighting broke out in Hama on 27th May. The gendarmerie, under the orders of the Syrian Government, at first protected the railway station from being interfered with but were eventually overpowered. This was disappointing as only the day before the British political officer had been able to arrange a meeting between the various parties and a diminution of tension. I need not detail the subsequent spread of disorders, but on 28th May the Syrian Minister for Foreign Affairs informed His Majesty's Minister that events had overtaken him and he could no longer be responsible for internal security. At Horns and Hama there was shelling by the French and the situation got quite out of hand. Disorders spread to Damascus where French shelling began on the evening of 29th May—into this


open and crowded city—and continued off and on until the morning of 31st May. The official casualty figures for Damascus are: Killed, gendarmes 80, civilians 400; seriously wounded 500; injured 1,000. Those are, of course, approximate. The Foreign Secretary has already explained to the House how these very unfortunate events overtook our proposals for international discussions of the position and how a tense situation was created throughout the Middle East, which made it inevitable for us to intervene to restore a situation which, had got out of hand and might spread almost without limit.
I should like here to express my regret that the message to General de Gaulle informing him of our intervention reached him some three quarters of an hour after my right hon. Friend had made his statement in the House. I need hardly say that no discourtesy was intended. I should also like to say that it was a pity that General de Gaulle did not see fit to inform His Majesty's Government of the instructions which, I understand, he has said were sent to General Beynet late on 30th May to cease fire. At the moment when we took our decision we had no reason to suppose that that was the case, and the shelling of Damascus was certainly continued on the morning of 31st May.
I hope it will be clear from the information which has been given to the House that it is not true, as has been suggested, that we have endeavoured to stir up agitation, but that the very opposite is the truth. We have done our utmost to preserve calm, to prevent misunderstandings and to bring the two sides together. My promise to General de Gaulle to withdraw all our troops as soon as satisfactory arrangements were made which would prevent disorder in Syria and the Lebanon was a serious step in policy and ought completely to have removed from the French mind the idea that we wished to supplant them or steal their influence. We do not intend to steal the property of anybody in this war, though a caveat may be necessary in respect of foreign enemies and that not for our own benefit. General de Gaulle also suggested that after the recent breakdown of negotiations disturbances were caused by bands armed with British weapons attacking isolated French posts. As the House has been informed by the Foreign Secretary, the Syrian gen-

darmerie and police were last year supplied, by agreement with the French, with some modern rifles and equipment.
I wish to make it clear here and now that until we had to intervene no arms were issued by us to the Syrians or Lebanese except by agreement with the French, although in the opinion of our military authorities the Syrian Government would have been better able to maintain order if more arms had been issued to their gendarmerie. For the sake of maintaining order we are now doing that. We have now issued some arms. It is unfortunately true that some 200 men of the 16th Arab Battalion of the Palestine Regiment were involved in minor disturbances in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, on VE Day, which is a long time ago compared with these events, and the day after. There were a number of other disturbances in Beirut at that time and it would be absurd to suggest that these instances had the smallest connection with the subsequent serious disturbances in Syria. An immediate inquiry was held and the unit concerned was withdrawn from the Levant States at once. There is no evidence at all to support the allegation that the men carried a Swastika flag.
Finally, I feel that I must answer the insinuation that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir E. Spears) was recalled from his post as His Majesty's Minister at Beirut at the request of General de Gaulle. The reasons for which my hon. and gallant Friend wished to relinquish his post, namely, to return to his Parliamentary duties before the General Election, were fully explained in communiqués issued at the time, and the suggestion that he was recalled to please General de Gaulle is entirely unfounded. I may say that my hon. and gallant Friend was selected by me a long time ago for this appointment in the Lebanon because, among other qualifications, he wears five wound stripes gained in his work as liaison officer between the French and British Armies during the last war. He is the last person on whom General de Gaulle should cast reflections, because he personally secured General de Gaulle's escape to England from Bordeaux in his motor car and airplane on 18th June, 1940.

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, in view of General de Gaulle's Press statement that he in-


formed the Ambassador here that it was eleven o'clock on the night of Wednesday the 30th that the cease fire had been ordered, whether he could say when he first heard from the French that the cease fire had been ordered?

The Prime Minister: Not until after the Foreign Secretary had made the answer which he did in this House, not until some time after. Indeed, when I woke up the morning after the Foreign Secretary's statement, I was delighted to see "Cease fire" written in the headlines of the newspapers. We had no information.

Mr. Attlee: The House will have been glad to have had a full account from the Prime Minister of the position in Syria. Can he give us any indication of what proposals there are now for obtaining a settlement, and will he before the House rises, if there is any further information that he could give the House, take an opportunity of mating a further statement?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. Our acceptance of the idea that there should be a conference between the British, United States and French Governments still stands and we hope that it will not be cast aside. I have seen suggestions that it should be a five-Power conference bringing in Russia and China. This would certainly cause a great deal of delay and require very careful consideration on many grounds. If there is anything to tell the House while it is in being, I shall certainly take advantage of any opportunity I may be given.

Mr. A. Bevan: Is not France in conjunction with us in the war against Japan, and is she not equally concerned in maintaining proper communications?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, that is perfectly true, though I do not know in which direction the intervention was directed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Mr. Attlee: I wish to ask a question with regard to the Business appearing on the Order Paper to-day. I wish to know whether the Notice of Motion dealing with the Business for Supply for the present Session is intended for to-day, or whether there has been some mistake, as I thought

this question was to be discussed tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker: I much regret that by a mistake that Motion appears upon the Order Paper to-day. It was unfortunately a printer's error. Of course, I shall not call it.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

The Prime Minister: May I make a short statement containing a suggestion to the House? I remember after the last war, when I became Secretary of State for War and Air, Questions were put on the Paper, running, I think, to well over 1,000 a week, and it was absolutely impossible to answer them in the Chamber. I, therefore, delegated the task of seeing Members who wished to ask Questions merely for information, and not, as it were; for public instruction, to a colleague who would receive them in a private room and give answers very quickly. I suggest that some arrangement like that, if agreeable, should be established at present. The Secretary of State for War has had 70 Questions to-day, of which more than half must have been unanswered. I suggest that by conversations arranged between the parties through the usual channels, Members can get a good many of their Questions answered by arrangement either by the Under-Secretary, or the Parliamentary Private Secretary in a room which will be at their disposal. In my case after the last war Mr. McCallum Scott, who was shortly afterwards killed, certainly did, to the great satisfaction of the House, answer a vast number of Questions of this kind which arose out of the period of demobilisation.

Mr. E. J. Williams: Where would the room be—here, or at the Foreign Office?

The Prime Minister: We must find a room here at the House.

Mr. Attlee: That is a matter that might well be discussed through the usual channels. I take it that Members would still be entitled to put down Questions.

The Prime Minister: Oh, yes. It is just a case of relieving pressure.

GENERAL EISENHOWER (VISIT TO LONDON)

Mr. Speaker: Now, I have a short statement to make. I propose, subject of


course to the approval of me House, not to be present on this day week at the early part of the Sitting. The House will remember that last August the Supreme Allied Commander, General Eisenhower, as a compliment to the House, invited the Speaker to visit him in Normandy. As he is now coming to the Mansion House to receive the Freedom of the City of London, I thought as a compliment by this House to General Eisenhower—the last compliment that this war-time Parliament can pay him—I, as Speaker, should be present in person.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

WADEBRIDGE RURAL DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL

Reported, with Amendments, from the Committee on Unopposed Bills (with Report on the Bill).

Bill, as amended, and Report to lie upon the Table; Report to be printed.

SOUTH SHIELDS CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

Reported, with Amendments, from the Committee on Unopposed Bills (with Report on the Bill).

Bill, as amended, and Report to lie upon the Table; Report to be printed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Bracken.]

Orders of the Day — FINANCE (No. 2) BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair]

Clauses 1 to 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: On a point of Order. Will the new Clause standing in my name be called?

The Chairman: The new Clauses were not selected.

Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — HOUSING (TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.51 p.m.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Willink): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This short Bill is one which in ordinary times no Government would be likely to introduce. It is of limited scope, yet this Government and the Coalition Government before it both believed that it was of considerable importance. The House will have observed that it bears the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stirling and Clackmannan (Mr. Johnston) in addition to my own. It is designed to enable the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Health to authorise, under strict safeguards, the use for temporary houses of open spaces vested in local authorities, and to-day I can add to the statutory safeguards in the Bill certain further assurances which, I think, will make the situation easier. It is of the essence of the Bill that it should become law before the end of this Parliament. At a later date it would lose a very great deal of its value, but should it be passed into law before the 15th of this month, in the opinion of those most

closely concerned—the particular local authorities which are in great difficulty in finding the complete number of sites for their houses and the Ministers who have been looking into this very carefully—I can specify, in addition to myself, my right hon. Friends the Ministers of Town and Country Planning and of Works—it will be of very substantial value in meeting a not negligible part of our urgent housing needs. As an estimate of what is likely to be the extent of its use, I should say that it will enable something like 7,000 to 8,000 temporary houses in the whole island to be put upon sites which, in the special circumstances of certain cities and towns, are the best, if not the only possible sites for them.
It was within two or three months of the passing of the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act last year that I began to receive representations from a few of our most completely built-up and bomb-damaged areas. The three that I have particularly in mind are London, Manchester and Birmingham. I think we all realised that the finding of sites for the temporary houses in the towns was going to be a difficult matter. If one uses land which has been acquired for permanent housing, that is, land which was chosen as suitable for permanent houses, and puts temporary houses on it, it prevents permanent houses being built on that land for something like 10 years. If you put temporary houses on bombed sites you prevent the building that has been bombed being rebuilt for the same period. If you try to put the houses on altogether fresh land, there are few fresh virgin sites in some of these places and those fresh sites will very likely be wanted for permanent housing before the period has run out. May I quote Manchester as an example? I understand that in Manchester there is unanimity in favour of the proposals in the Bill. The allocation of temporary houses to Manchester is 3,000. So far they have been able to find sites for only 1,500. A very careful survey of the area has been made by the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, and they are satisfied that the right place to put 1,000 of the 3,000 allocated is on certain fringes and parts of open spaces. Without these facilities we do not believe that Manchester can take the allocation of temporary houses which is its due and its need—they would have to refuse what would otherwise be available for them.


There is a subsidiary point, though the real point is the difficulty of finding sites at all. The subsidiary point is the urgency of the matter. The first Bill only became law last October and through the summer of this year there is going to be an ever-increasing flow of these temporary houses. We have to balance the flow of sites to meet the flow of production and the fringes of open spaces have this great advantage. They are by roads, with services, and the land is already acquired. Not only do you save time in the legal processes of acquiring the land but you probably save somewhere between two and four months in development work.
The position in London and Birmingham is similar to that in Manchester, though the number of houses for which Birmingham is unable to find sites is smaller. The House might be interested to know the position in the County of London, which is one of the most serious problems. I think it is very much to the credit of the London County Council and the metropolitan borough councils that, out of an allocation of 12,000 for the county, they have found sites for 10,301. The London County Council have determined upon housing sites outside the county—their own housing sites—for 2,000, so that they have found 8,301 within the county. The balance is not large—it is 1,700. This will not make any serious inroad on the open spaces in London but it has become impossible to find more sites in London which will not block other development.
Now may I say what the present law is and what the alteration will be? Under the existing law the use by local authorities of public open spaces for housing, unless they find other equivalent land to make public open space in exchange, can be authorised by Provisional Order; but, of course, that procedure is protracted. This is in form a Bill expediting procedure and authorising Ministers to do by simple Order what can at present be done only by Provisional Order. Under the Bill the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Health will be enabled, for a limited period of two years, and subject to important safeguards, to authorise a local authority to use for temporary houses an open space vested in them. The three main safeguards in the Bill are these. First, they can give the authorisation only on the application of the local

authority. No local authority will lightly make an application for the use of an open space for this purpose. It will be made only because of the dire need, after the authority have looked at the thing in the interests of the people and balancing the housing shortage against all other considerations. The second safeguard is that authorisation can be given only if the Minister of Town and Country Planning certifies that he is satisfied that this use of the land is, in the words of the Bill,
expedient in the public interest in consequence of the emergency that was the occasion of the passing of the said Act of 1944 and in the particular circumstances in which the authorisation is sought.
The third safeguard is that, even where that certificate has been given in regard to a particular area of land, it is still within the discretion of the Health Ministers to decide whether on balance the authority could do without the houses or have a smaller number.

Dr. Haden Guest: The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that this can only be done at the request of the local authority in London. Would that be the London County Council, or one of the borough councils, or both? What would be the status of a borough council if it wanted to put up some houses in a special area?

Mr. Willink: Both the London County Council and the Metropolitan Boroughs are housing authorities, and part of this work is being done by both in the closest co-operation. I do not anticipate any conflict, but if there were it would have to be resolved, I imagine, by myself.

Sir Percy Hurd: Has my right hon. and learned Friend deliberately excluded Scotland from the second safeguard?

Mr. Willink: In Scotland the Secretary of State is not only the Housing Minister, but the Planning Minister, so that he will have a double function in that respect. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Town and Country Planning intends that where an application is made by a local authority for this authorisation, he will not give his certificate until a special survey of the area of the local authority has been made, bringing under review all possible sites, and until he has satisfied himself that there is no alternative land available, having regard to sound planning con-


side rations. I have referred to the fact that this is a Bill of short duration. The authorisation cannot be given except during a period of two years from the beginning of the Act. In the second place, the authorisation cannot be for a period of more than 10 years. There is an absolutely definite limit to the use of the space. In the third place, there is a clear provision that the land has to be reinstated at the end of the period.
There is a little complication, into which I shall go, with regard to commons. The word "common" has a number of significations. I have not had to take part in the recent Debates on them, but this is the position under the Bill. Only those commons which are either vested in the local authority or are at their disposal come within the scope of the Bill. The great majority of the "commons" vested in local authorities are, I am informed, vested as public open spaces within the meaning of the Public Health Acts. Although they may still be called "commons," all common rights have in fact been extinguished. On the other hand, I believe there may be cases, though they are certainly rare, where a common vests in the local authority but the common rights are still exerciseable. I have had representations on this matter, as one might expect, from the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society, and I am prepared to assure the House that I should not approve any proposal submitted by a local authority which involved the disturbance of existing common rights. I do not think the case is likely to arise, but even if we had any such intention, there would necessarily have to be provision for compensation in the Bill; as there is none, I can give that assurance.
Another point that might cause concern is rights of way. The Bill provides that no right of way over the part of an open space which is to be used for temporary housing shall cease to be capable of being exercised. It is not the intention to stop up any public right of way under this provision, except where an equally convenient or alternative right of way is provided. I can give that assurance also.

Mr. Graham White: That will be covered by the provision in Sub-section (6)?

Mr. Willink: Certainly, but I was speaking of the time when the houses are there.
So far as London is concerned, I ought to say a word about the Royal Parks. They are not included within the scope of the Bill, and I hope the House will be satisfied that there are good reasons for that. I have already said that the problem remaining in London, on the allocation that has been made, is to find sites for no more than 1,700 temporary houses. The allocations are on the footing of a total production of temporary houses of 150,000. Seventeen hundred houses would take about 150 acres out of the 8,000-odd acres of public open space vested in the local authorities. I feel, therefore, that sufficient sites can clearly be found in other open spaces in London without using the Royal Parks for this purpose. There is another serious consideration. I said a few moments ago that this Bill is in form one that simply expedites procedure. It enables the Minister to do, to this limited extent and under safeguards, what can be done already but is done by another procedure. The position of the Royal Parks is wholly different. The appropriation of a local authority's public open space can be effected by a simple Order without coming to this House if there is an exchange of land. There is, however, no procedure under the existing law for alienating any part of the Royal Parks to any other purpose. Special legislation would be necessary, and it might well be very controversial. Certainly it would be outside the scope of this Bill to bring in something of that kind.

Captain Gammans: I wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend would deal with the question of those boroughs of London which have no open spaces under their own control, but which have them in the vicinity belonging to another authority or under some statutory body. Those open spaces are the only spaces available for houses of this sort, and will my right hon. Friend extend the Bill to cover them?

Mr. Willink: I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend is referring to commons owned by the London County Council or those owned by a neighbouring borough to that which he represents. Difficulties are, of course, often cropping up over local authority boundaries in Greater


London. I would endeavour to assist a local authority of that kind to make arrangements with its neighbour, but it is not within the Bill, and I should find it difficult to frame an Amendment which would deal with the point. So far as the outer part of London is concerned, there, too, the finding of sites has gone forward well, and there are only 6,500 more to find in the whole of greater London. The point my hon. and gallant Friend raises is not covered by the Bill, and it cannot be met unless his local authority can persuade another authority to make application to receive on their land houses allotted for the people of Hornsey.
When one thinks of open spaces, one tends to think of parks and beautiful trees and land which has been beautifully laid out. On the contrary, I have seen photographs of land which the provincial cities are proposing to use—though I have not seen in detail what the London County Council or the Metropolitan Boroughs might wish to use—and, there is no reason to fear that the operation of this Bill will result in the cutting down of beautiful trees or the destruction of well laid-out ornamental parks. There are in our large towns a number of open spaces which, although they have been dedicated to the public use as open spaces, have never been laid out. Many have been used during the war for wartime purposes, like anti-aircraft batteries, and it is that sort of area and, in particular, the fringes, which I contemplate will be used.
We are in this Bill honestly facing an aspect of our housing emergency, and I suggest that we should be failing in our duty if we hesitated to take any proper steps to increase the number of houses which can be made speedily available or if we did not allow for all proper discretion in the siting of the homes that we need so urgently. I hope, therefore, that the House will accept these proposals and enable the Ministers concerned to help the areas that I have named together with a few others that may have similar needs.

4.13 p.m.

Mr. Silkin: We on this side of the House will accept the Bill as a regrettable necessity and purely as an emergency Measure, subject to a number of safeguards which I hope my right hon. and learned Friend will see his way to accept. My right hon. and learned

Friend referred to the Bill as a small Measure for expediting procedure. I did not quite follow him. He stated that it would be possible under other legislation to do what this Bill purported to do, except that this Bill would do it more speedily. I am surprised to learn that it is possible under existing legislation to take an open space and use it for housing, except on the basis of providing an equal amount of open space elsewhere.

Mr. Willink: I would remind my hon. Friend that the provisions with regard to that are found in the Housing Act, 1936, Section 143.

Mr. Silkin: That would not enable a local authority merely to take an open space and use it for housing without any qualification or safeguard. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend will find that there must be conditions attached to the taking of open spaces for housing purposes, one of which must be to ensure that the total amount of open space is not reduced. This Bill does substantially reduce the amount of open space available to the public. My right hon. and learned Friend referred to 7,000 to 8,000 houses, which I imagine will take something like 1,000 acres. They will deprive the public of this 1,000 acres for 10 years, assuming that the Bill is not extended hereafter. Possibly neither of us is interested in what may happen in ten years' time. There is nothing in the Bill to indicate that, it is limited to 7,000 or 8,000 houses. The right hon. and learned Gentleman assumed that the total programme of temporary houses would be 150,000. That is the first time that I have heard that the programme is limited to 150,000.

Mr. Willink: I would ask the hon. Gentleman not to put a gloss on what I said. What I said was that the allocations to which I referred were the allocations made out of 150,000. The position remains as it has been stated several times, that the number of temporary houses to be introduced will be at least 145,000.

Mr. Silkin: If the number of houses which are to be built on open spaces is limited to 7,000 or 8,ooo, and it is based on a programme of 150,000, as the right hon. Gentleman said, it looks to me as if we are now to be limited to 150,000 houses. If the programme of temporary housing is increased, presumably it will


be increased pro rata in the areas where housing conditions are difficult, such as Manchester, Birmingham and London, and in that case the amount of open space required will have to be increased, because the assumption underlying this Bill is that all the available land has now been taken up. There is nothing left in Manchester, Birmingham or London except the open spaces. If the programme is increased, as it might well be and as indeed we were promised it would be, then I assume that the desire of those three cities and others will be greater and the right hon. and learned Gentleman will require more open space. This Bill therefore is not limited to the 7,000 or 8,000 houses, or to the 1,000 acres to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred in introducing the Measure.
It is an ironical fact that in those three cities particularly there is a great shortage of open space. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Town and Country Planning will remember that one of the major defects in London referred to by Sir Patrick Abercrombie and Mr. Forshaw was the lack of open spaces and the maldistribution of open spaces. In many parts of London, Manchester and Birmingham there is a great shortage of open space and those local authorities are engaged in increasing the amount of open space. It seems ironical that, at the same time as they are seeking to increase the amount of open space available to their citizens, they will also be using a certain amount of open space for temporary housing.

Sir Patrick Hannon: The hon. Gentleman spoke with reference to Birmingham; we want 20,000 houses in Birmingham.

Mr. Silkin: The hon. Gentleman could not have heard his right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Health, because the total number in Birmingham is very much less than that. I understand that the right hon. and learned Gentleman attaches great importance to the fact that he himself and the Minister of Town and Country Planning will have to approve any particular applications. But he did not tell us on what principles applications would be considered. I have very great faith in the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Town and Country Planning. I know he is an enthusiastic planner, but he will not be there very long. There is no provision here which will bind his

successor. I would like to have seen inserted in the Bill some standard which the right hon. and learned Gentleman will have to apply in considering applications of this sort. I understand he will make a survey whenever an application is made, but to what purpose? What will be his standard? Supposing he finds as a result of his survey, that there is a great deal of open space lacking in a particular area, will he permit land to be used for housing purposes? I would like an assurance from the right hon. and learned Gentleman that in considering any application he will satisfy himself that no other land is available before permitting public open spaces to be alienated for housing purposes. We must not allow public open spaces to be taken as an alternative to a compulsory purchase order. After all, there are many local authorities which, will regard alienating open space as a simple method for providing land for housing purposes.
May I put this specific question to the right hon. and learned Gentleman? When I was chairman of the housing committee in London we were very short of land, and in many cases the only way in which we could find land for housing purposes was to go to an area where housing was very sparse, where there were perhaps one or two houses to the acre. We went to the constituency of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Works and took a very large slice of his constituency. Supposing such land is available, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman make a survey to ascertain whether such land can be acquired, instead of using up public open spaces? If the right hon. and learned Gentleman gives that assurance and if, somehow, that assurance can be put into the Bill, it would give me at any rate very great comfort. After all, it is very tempting to a local authority to take this land which costs them nothing, saves them a great deal of trouble and is staring them in the face, rather than make an effort to create sites for housing purposes as was done by the London County Council, which after all is a very good authority, whereas other authorities are not as good, in spite of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman thinks about it.
Most of the public open spaces which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has in mind will be on the fringes, and


therefore there will be roads available but not necessarily services. Is it proposed that such land should be taken, even though the services are not there, and that the services will be provided? It will happen that in the vast majority of cases public open spaces which might at first appear to be very suitable would not be found suitable because of the need for providing the services there. I imagine that must be the case with the great majority of open spaces in a large town. They would not normally have the services readily available although of course they might be in the road. They would not actually be provided on the site ready for the erection of houses.
The Bill provides that the authorisation should be for a period of not longer than 10 years. No one can bind the Minister's successor, but I would like an assurance that the intention is not to apply for an extension of that period. I know the housing situation may well be difficult even in 10 years' time. I hope it will be less difficult than it is to-day, but it may well be difficult. It would be easy to find excuses in 10 years' time for not displacing people living in these temporary houses—assuming that the temporary houses stand up as long as 10 years, about which I have very great doubts as regards many of them. Perhaps that will be the answer to my question. Assuming they do—there are some that might—I would like an assurance that at any rate it is not the intention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to apply for any extension of the to years, and that at the end of that time houses that have been erected on public open spaces, will be demolished in priority to houses which have been put on other land. I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask that those should be the first to go.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman said nothing about the very difficult question of finance. In two respects, obligations are placed upon the local authorities. First they are required to pay compensation for injurious affection to adjoining owners in respect of the erection of houses. The necessity for building temporary houses arises solely from the conditions due to the war, particularly in the areas where this problem is greatest, such as London, Manchester and Birmingham. It is entirely due to the war that it has become necessary to erect temporary houses.

Therefore, I submit that the obligation to pay compensation in respect of the injurious affection should be placed upon the Exchequer and not upon the local authorities. I do not know that it will be a particularly burdensome obligation, but such as it is it would be only right, especially because the land will be cheap, that the obligation should rest upon the Exchequer. The Bill is silent on the matter; I do not know whether it is within the terms of the Bill that the Exchequer should meet the obligation or whether it would need some Amendment to the Bill, and unfortunately time is short. I would be glad of an undertaking that it is the intention that the Exchequer should meet any claim in respect of injurious affection.
Lastly, there is an obligation placed upon the local authorities to reinstate the land in the state in which it was before the houses were built. No one will complain about an obligation being placed upon somebody to reinstate the land. Of course, it is the desire of every hon. Member in this House that the open space shall be reinstated at the earliest possible moment, and I think the local authorities are the best people to carry out this reinstatement. There again, it will be a fairly costly matter, and, for the reasons I mentioned a moment ago, I think the cost of the reinstatement should be borne by the Exchequer. I do not know what the financial arrangements will be in respect of these houses. Obviously, the ordinary subsidy basis may not necessarily apply. The need for these houses having arisen out of the war, I feel that the charge should be spread evenly throughout the country, and should therefore be borne by the national Exchequer.

Mr. Loftus: If the whole of the cost is to be borne by the national Exchequer might there not be, as it were, an inducement to local authorities rather recklessly to utilise public money?

Mr. Silkin: I was not suggesting that the whole of the cost should be borne by the Exchequer, but I was referring to those particular items—the obligation to compensate and the obligation to reinstate land. As regards those two, certainly I think it should be an Exchequer obligation. As I said at the outset, we on this side will, very reluctantly, agree to the Second Reading of this Bill, but we would be glad of assurances on the various points


which I have mentioned. Particularly we desire any further assurance which can be given to ensure, first, that the powers will not be recklessly or needlessly used, and, secondly, that the public will be deprived of the open space for the shortest possible period.

4.30 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The Bill applies not only to England but to Scotland and has the name of the former Secretary of State for Scotland on the back of it. Full figures have been given to us by the Minister of Health as regards England, of the size of the programme of emergency houses, the number of houses which have been applied for by the various authorities, the sites which are available for the houses and the margins and amounts of land which he expects it will be necessary to requisition in this fashion. We should desire to know also from the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland the corresponding figures with regard to Scotland. What applications have been made by the great Scottish local authorities? How far have they got? Is it expected that they can manage without using land in this way? Have any of the great local authorities made application for powers of this kind? Serious as the housing situation is in England, it is a matter of common knowledge that it is infinitely greater in Scotland. Crowded burghs in Scotland desperately need some small amount of open land upon which temporary houses can be erected in order to enable those authorities to deal with overcrowding. There are cases in which roofs are actually tumbling down about the ears of people residing under them, but such houses are all those people have at present. Those are simple questions, and if the Joint Under-Secretary of State can answer them as far as possible just now it might enable the whole position to be grasped and the Debate to go on covering both. Scotland and England.

4.32 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of Stale for Scotland (Mr. Allan Chapman): I wonder whether if it will be for the convenience of the House, if I answer the right hon. and gallant Gentleman briefly at once. No representations have been received from local authorities in Scotland for powers such as are set out in the Bill. We have actually no current need for them.

We have taken these powers because they were to be debated in the House and we thought it might be useful to have them. We do not expect, on the present programme and outlook, that it will be necessary to encroach on these public places in any way. Take a great city like Glasgow; we understand that it can get all the ground it wants for its housing programe without encroaching upon the public parks, which I think is very salutary, very satisfactory and desirable.
Regarding the figures for which my right hon. and gallant Friend called, from all the authorities in Scotland the applications number 56,000, of which 34,300 have been allocated—agreed to, that is. There are 3,387 fully serviced sites and another 19,711 sites which have been approved. Those are the main figures which my right hon. and gallant Friend required. He can rest assured that we are seized very deeply indeed of the gravity of the housing position in Scotland and that we shall not hesitate to take any steps to see that the necessary land is forthcoming for the houses. We are, as I have said, in the happy position at present of not requiring to exercise powers under the Bill. We shall have them there in reserve if necessary, but I do not think they will be necessary.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Can the Minister say whether the Special Housing Association is to be regarded for this purpose as a local authority or not? I am not nearly so happy as he is about the fact that local authorities have not made application, because, in many cases, that is simply due to slackness and the attitude that has grown up in Scotland. May I, anyway, ask him whether the Special Housing Association is to be regarded as a local authority for this purpose?

Mr. Chapman: I would require notice of that question. I will communicate with my right hon. and gallant Friend.

4.34 p.m.

Mr. Graham White: No Government would introduce a Bill like this in ordinary times, because there would be very notable opposition, in which I should probably take part. On this occasion I hope that the House will agree to the Bill speedily. Some additional safeguards may be considered necessary and, if so, I hope they will be adopted,


but I am not able to regret very much the necessity to take any action which will bring some relief to the present housing situation. There is a national emergency, which is not growing less from day to day but is becoming of greater gravity with the return of men from the Forces. It gives rise to a state of great anxiety. Therefore I hope that the Bill will become law as speedily as possible. The safeguards in Clauses 1 and 6 are adequate. As regards the special powers of the Minister of Town and Country Planning, there will no doubt be a survey, but I was a little frightened when I heard about it, because surveys usually take a great deal of time. In this case, there is recognition that the survey must be taken without undue delay. No doubt the Minister will see that no common land is used when there is a possibility of alternative land being available. There is also the point about compensation, and I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will give consideration to the point of whether any part of that should be borne by the Exchequer. I should be in some doubt about it myself.
There is only one other point I wish to raise. The national emergency in housing is very critical and there is a growing feeling, arising from the position in which ex-Servicemen find themselves when they come back. Public opinion is growing and it is of great importance that there should be visible evidence, as soon as possible, of action being taken. When the temporary houses begin to appear it will be a great relief to everybody. I hope the House will give the Bill as speedy a passage as possible.

4.39 P.m.

Mr. Kirkwood: I had no idea of entering this discussion when I came into the House, but I noticed the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) on his feet. He was replied to at once by the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. I had a Question down to the Joint Under-Secretary of State—we have no Secretary of State. Fancy Scotland being reduced in this House to an Undersecretary. The Secretary of State is now transferred to another place and we now have only an Under-Secretary. I asked him how many houses had been built in Scotland since 31st December. 1944, and

what steps he had taken to secure early supplies of materials, and the release of skilled men from the Forces.

Mr. Deputy - Speaker (Mr. Charles Williams): I am afraid that the Joint Under-Secretary of State would not be in Order in giving such details to the hon. Member now, because the Bill does not deal with skilled men or materials but with a very much smaller point.

Mr. Kirkwood: I know that perfectly well and I do not think it would be in Order, but with due respect to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, may I say, so that you should understand the- point I was making, that it was necessary for me to read out the Question? I have an answer to my Question. The Question was:
To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland how many houses have been built in Scotland since 31st December, 1944; and what steps he is taking to secure further supplies of materials, the release of skilled men from the Forces for the building industry and generally to expedite the building of houses which are so urgently needed in Scotland.
The hon. Gentleman's reply was tantamount to saying that they were doing their very best and that we could rest assured that the matter was having the most careful and serious attention. We have been told that for five or six years. Now we want something definite. Since the matter has been raised on the Floor of the House I want to know what the Government are going to do to ease the situation. Only yesterday I met a deputation of women from Clydebank and a number of them said that their boys were coming home. One family had been blasted out three or four years ago, and they have no houses yet. They are living in a single apartment, a mixed family. Fathers and brothers are coming home and the people have no beds for them. That position was put to me only yesterday. Only last night the Prime Minister told this country that we must provide a home for the boys when they come back. Where are the homes? What have the Government done to deal with this serious business? Have they rescinded the Cabinet decision that, for the duration of the war house building shall cease?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is clear that we cannot go into those matters to-day on a Bill which is so narrow, and which simply deals with temporary accommodation in


certain local areas. We cannot go into the Regulations about building labour and materials.

Dr. Haden Guest: Is it not a fact that in a Second Reading Debate, it is in Order to discuss a matter which refers to subjects outside the scope of the particular Bill?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: No. We can have a very wide Debate on the Second Reading of a Bill, but there must be some limit to its scope. Here the scope is limited to sites for temporary houses. The main guiding principle of the Bill is the acquisition of certain public land for that purpose, and that has nothing to do with building materials, which lie outside that scope.

Mr. Silverman: I understand that building materials are to go into the houses, and that they are necessary in the circumstances because of the emergency that exists. Surely it must be relevant to discuss whether there is any real emergency, and if so whether it can be met in some other way.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That has already been done in the sense that there is a shortage of houses which justifies the taking of public ground, but I cannot see how the regulations about the use of materials can be brought within the scope of this Bill.

Mr. Kirkwood: With all due respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I am not talking about materials or about labour or anything else connected with the building of houses. I am speaking to show that the demand made by the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove in my hearing—and you allowed it to be made, Sir, and there was a promise made by the Joint Under-Secretary in my hearing, again allowed by you—cannot be fulfilled as long as the Cabinet decision stands that for the duration of the war house building in this country must cease. I want to know whether the Cabinet have rescinded that decision. If not, this Bill is so much mockery, and the Government will not be allowed to mock my folk. My folk are desperate for houses. Think of the appalling conditions to which I had to listen yesterday—the heroes of unwritten stories pleading with me to get them homes. I cannot get them homes, because of this decision of the Cabinet.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have already said that we cannot discuss, on this Bill, that particular Order. I must ask the hon. Member to keep to that decision of mine.

Mr. Tinker: The point my hon. Friend is trying to make is that of housing requirements, and he is trying to urge the Government to go a little further than they are going. To my mind he is on the right lines in urging that.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the lion. Member had been connecting his point with the purpose of the Bill, which I have already pointed out is for the temporary acquisition of public land for housing purposes, and if he had been arguing that the Government should take more or less land, I should not have interrupted him. But when he deals with an Order which is quite outside the scope of the Bill, then I suggest that we should keep to the Bill.

Mr. Silverman: No one wishes to question the Ruling of the Chair, but we do wish to try to understand it. If my hon. Friend were putting forward the argument that it is no use giving the power to acquire land because when the Government have it they will not be able to build houses on it, surely that would be a good reason, or at any rate a relevant reason, for arguing against this Bill?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Put in that rather mild way it might have been in Order, but a direct attack on the Government Order is developing 'the Debate very widely and is, I still say, outside the scope of the Bill.

Mr. Kirkwood: I am entirely in your hands, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. May I put it in this way? I am faced with the situation that this Bill cannot be put into effective operation. It will be of no assistance to us in Scotland, and I would be lacking in my duty, knowing that to be the case, if I did hot draw attention to the fact, because the people in Scotland will realise it. They are faced with the hard fact that they have no houses, and that they are living under hellish conditions. It is our duty to drive that home to hon. Members here. What is the use of saying that the acquisition of land will empower the Government to deal with that situation when, even if the Bill is passed, the Government cannot get to work building houses? The purpose of this Bill is to


try to meet our clamant demand. This is not the first time I have stood here and denounced the rulers of this country, who promised the people the Kingdom of Heaven in order to induce them to go and fight, and then, after they have fought the greatest war in all history, here they are returning home—with no homes to which to come. What a ridiculous state of affairs. The Government should be ashamed of themselves. The people of this country will chase this Government when they find themselves with no homes after they have fought and conquered in every quarter of the globe. My constituents, the folk I represent, are coming home after they have done all they have done, some of them having lost a leg or an arm, some of them having been blinded, and they have nowhere to lay their heads after fighting for their country. They have no country. If you have not got a home what is the use of your country?

Mr. Erskine-Hill: Why did the hon. Member not make that speech three weeks ago?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That does not arise on this Bill.

Mr. Kirkwood: The reply is obvious. That question is an indication that the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine-Hill) must not be a very good attender at the House of Commons.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member must not pursue that matter.

Mr. Kirkwood: The hon. and learned Member only seeks to draw me off the trail. This is a very serious business. I am doing my best to warn the Government of what awaits them unless we get the Secretary of State for Scotland in this House. The Prime Minister has played a terribly dirty one on us. I never thought the Prime Minister would do anything of the kind. He has appointed the Earl of Rosebery to be Secretary of State for Scotland, and his only justification, according to his speech last night, was because the new Secretary of State was the son of his father, who was a famous Earl of Rosebery. The day has passed when—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am afraid we cannot discuss that matter on this very limited Bill.

Mr. Kirkwood: I shall use every available opportunity to draw attention to this injustice, but I do not wish to pursue it any further now.
I want some reply from the Joint Under-Secretary because the onus will fall on him at the Election, which is not very far distant. I want to know what he will reply, when he is faced with this situation with which I am faced. Hundreds of my constituents have no homes, and their sons and husbands are coming home from the war. What is the reply? What must I say to these folk in justification for the sacrifices which not only their men but the women folk as well have made? Fancy trying to rear a family, trying to rear a baby in somebody else's house, having nowhere, no bed of one's own. I have seen a cradle that was kept below the bed. Was that in Germany, in Russia? No, in my native land, the land of my fathers, the land of my nativity. We are treating our people in this fashion. That is what they are coming home to. What is the Under-Secretary going to tell me to reply to these folk? If he does not tell me, I will raise the matter here at every moment I can, to-day, to-morrow, as long as I am here. You can fling me out or do what you like with me. My folk will send me back to fight for them against you folk. I want a reply from the Under-Secretary.

4.56 p.m.

Sir Patrick Hannon: I very much hope my right hon. and learned Friend will get his Bill, but I would like to make this suggestion to him. In some of our cities, particularly in a city like Birmingham, there are happily a great number of open spaces which present opportunities of recreation at the week-end to large numbers of people who work in our factories, and, of course, to children. Supplementing what has been said by the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) I hope that before these open spaces are appropriated, my right hon. and learned Friend, through the local authority, will take every precaution that all land available within the precincts of the municipality shall be investigated, examined and exploited, before these open spaces are appropriated for the building of temporary houses. We all remember that after the last war, owing to the exigencies of the housing problem at that time,


houses were rapidly erected, particularly in a locality close to Birmingham. They were of a temporary character, and were supposed to be removed after a short time, but they remain, to this day, an eyesore to the whole countryside. Before we embark upon this somewhat novel scheme, essential and necessary as it is—goodness knows in Birmingham our housing problem is particularly acute at the moment—I hope my right hon. and learned Friend will take every precaution to sec that the people shall not be deprived of their opportunity of recreation which these openings in our cities—breathing spaces for our people—afford, without first exploiting every acre, where he can get a site for houses in the surrounding area.
We have, in Birmingham, the Lickey Hills, spread over a part of Worcestershire with all their fascination and beauty, for our people to enjoy at the week-ends, and in the evenings during the summer. It would be unfortunate if amenities of that nature were interfered with. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will, in exercising his authority through the local authority, or directly, will take care that these amenities, so far as is consistent with the exigencies of the housing problem, shall be preserved. My right hon. and learned Friend is taking steps which are essential in the crisis through which we are now passing. I agree with the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) that we shall face a problem of a most pressing nature when our men come back and find no homes in which to live. Without making any prophecy about the forthcoming Election, I consider that the most difficult question for every candidate to answer, no matter to what party he belongs, will be where we shall find homes for our men returning from the fighting Sentences. And in the Midlands, with which I am particularly associated, that problem will be probably more acute than anywhere else.
The Minister of Health has given much of his time to the solving of this problem, and I hope the House will give him this Bill. While he is doing so much, and knowing his quality and character as an administrator, I know he will take every precaution not to deprive great communities of their opportunities of recreation, and in the cases in which temporary houses have to be erected, I ask that they

shall be temporary in the ordinary accepted sense of the word, and shall not be eyesores to the coming generation. Thirdly, the small landowner and the small person enjoying the possession of house property in our cities have had a very raw deal during these difficult times. In their interest, I am sure, my right hon. and learned Friend will take care that, whether the compensation is provided by the Exchequer, as suggested by the other side, or by the local authorities, it shall be fair and square. I have great pleasure in supporting the Second Reading.

5.1 p.m.

The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. W. S. Morrison): It may assist the House if I refer briefly to the spirit in which I propose to discharge the duty laid upon me by the Bill, if the House should accept it. There are other housing points to which replies will have to be made later. Fears have been expressed that local authorities might seek to discharge their housing responsibilities by a lavish use of these open spaces, without regard to the amenity provided by the open spaces. Local authorities, in my experience, are very jealous of their open spaces, and wish to retain them. Only when there is no other way out of the difficulty will they put forward an application successfully so far as my Department is concerned. I can give the assurance asked for by the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) that the certificate will not be given until, after a careful survey of all the land resources of the local authority applying for the certificate, I am satisfied that there is no other way to meet the necessity for houses. The hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. Graham White) was rather appalled at the word "survey," feeling that that might involve an undue delay; but we know in advance the districts where the problem is most acute, and in most of them the survey is well under way; so there should be no delay about that. I hope that, with that assurance, the House will have no difficulty in accepting this Bill.

5.3 p.m.

Mr. Jewson: It is difficult to welcome a Bill which takes away our open spaces, and it is difficult also for some of us to welcome a Bill which proposes to build temporary houses, seeing that what we want are permanent houses.


We hope that the temporary houses will be restricted to as few as may be absolutely unavoidable. Nevertheless, I welcome the Bill, because the housing situation in my constituency, and I gather, from what I have heard, in other constituencies as well, can be described only as desperate. We not only have to look forward to the coming back of our men from the Army, wanting homes, but in my constituency at least there are still many people whose homes have been so damaged by enemy action that we have a long list of people wanting accommodation, without waiting for the soldiers who are coming back to be added to them. Added to that, there are those who have been living away during the war, at the request of the Government, and who want to come back to their own towns. Therefore, anything which promises some relief in regard to housing will have my support. I hope that if we pass this Bill to-day it will in many places not be put into force because it will not be necessary. Nevertheless, if it will give us extra houses that we should not have had without its passing, it will be a very useful Bill. On those grounds, I am glad to support it.

5.5 P.m.

Mr. Silverman: This is a melancholy occasion. There has never been a time, I suppose, when any Member of this House was satisfied that the people, especially those of our large towns, had anything like sufficient open spaces. Only the other day we passed a little Bill to give the Ministry of Education the power, taking it over in some sort from the Ministry of Health, to provide camp schools, where 8,000 children would be enabled to see the countryside, to see the sky, to see something other than the gloomy slum conditions which they see in our cities. At the end of it all, what are we doing today? We are taking away some of the inadequate open spaces that we have managed to retain. Nobody can oppose the Bill. Nobody can doubt that it is right to give the Government anything they ask for that even looks like an attempt to deal with the housing question. But let us not be mistaken: it is a melancholy and a tragic thing that we are doing. Why are we doing it? This is a contribution by the Government to

meeting the housing emergency. This is something to improve the situation.
But why is the emergency there? People are too fond of talking about the housing problem as though it were due entirely to the war. Nobody denies that the war has intensified the problem, but there was a very serious housing shortage in the country before the war. The damage done to our houses, the loss that we have suffered in houses during the war, has been a grievous addition to what was already a grievous situation. The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) made a very eloquent and moving speech about the conditions in his own constituency. I do not suppose that it is any comfort to him, but the conditions in his constituency are not unique. Every one of our great cities is full of conditions of that kind. I myself represented for years on the Liverpool City Council an area, right in the heart of a constituency which regarded itself as being one of the premier commercial divisions of this country, which consisted of nothing but slums. There was a street with 100 houses in it, and a separate family in every room of every house—nine, 10, and 12 persons, of all ages and both sexes, living in one room. Those conditions went on for years. Certainly the war has intensified that problem enormously, but it did not create it.
This emergency that we are now trying to meet in some small part by this Measure, by giving up a part of our hard-won and meagre open spaces, is the price that we pay for long years of Tory neglect of the housing of the people of this country. They have not just come into power: they have held power in this country for 25 years, and more. To-day they find themselves in an emergency. About what? Not about building houses. This Bill has nothing to do with that.

Captain Duncan: Will the hon. Member remember the remarks of the hon. Member for Peckham (Mf. Silkin), who said that this question arose purely from the war?

Mr. Silverman: The hon. Member for Peckham made his speech, and I am making mine. I have said nothing yet that the hon. Member for Peckham, of all people in this House, would differ from. With his experience of London housing, he would be the last to assert that this housing problem is entirely the


result of the war. He was dealing with an aspect of the problem: I am dealing with the whole problem.

Mr. Silkin: Perhaps I had better make clear what I said. I was dealing with temporary houses. I said that the need for temporary houses arose as a result of the war.

Mr. Silverman: What is the contribution that is asked for in the Bill? Not a contribution to build houses. It goes one step further back, to the elementary proposition that you cannot build houses unless you have somewhere to put them. That elementary problem is exactly the problem that the Conservative Party in this House have shirked and burked all the time they have been in office and in power. We have had Commission after Commission with reports about the control and use of land in the interests of the community; and they lie still in the pigeon holes of the War Cabinet. Why? Because they raised controversial problems, and the Prime Minister determined that while the war lasted it would be improper, or at any rate impracticable, to deal with questions that raised controversy. The war with Germany is over, the Coalition is at an end. What prevents them now from making their proposals for acquiring for the community the powers to direct the use of land for communal purposes? This pettifogging, pitiable little Measure gives our local authorities power to take publicly-owned land used for open spaces and to use it for this purpose. The Tory Party have never had the courage to face up to the problem of giving the local authorities power to take proper land to deal with their problems.
It is all very well asking for assurances, and giving assurances, that the period of 10 years will never be extended. Even 10 years is a long time. In that to years you deprive a whole generation of children of the use of the open spaces that we take. But who can say that, if any assurance were given to-day, the period of to years would never be extended, and that the assurance would have any meaning at all, or could ever be honoured, unless some day some Government, with a mandate from the country to do it, take into active consideration, with a determination to act, this problem of the control of the use of land?
I ask the House to look at the structure of the Bill. It is a Bill that gives the Minister certain powers, and, when he has got the powers, he exercises them by Order. When he has made an Order, he can revoke it. It is perfectly true that he does not either make the Order, or revoke it, at his own sweet will. His discretion to make or revoke an Order is not an unfettered discretion. He gets broad general directions about the principles on which he is to act when he decides to make an Order, or when he decides to revoke it. Clause 1 gives him those powers. Be it noted that no act that he does under these powers need be submitted to this House. It is all done in the Department. It is he who decides, without appeal, in every case, whether public land shall be taken or not, whether open spaces shall be sacrificed or not. It is he who decides, in the Department, whether, before the end of the 10 years, any open spaces that have been taken shall be given back. I do not know whether it could have been done in any other way, but I am extremely interested to see the Government to-day asking this House of Commons to pass a Bill giving the Government power to act in the Department, without coming to the House, but merely according to broad general principles laid down by the Act. I am surprised to find that, because I understood from the Prime Minister's speech last night that that was a very reprehensible tiling to do. I find this passage in the Prime Minister's speech:
A free Parliament

Captain Duncan: On a point of Order. Is it in Order for the hon. Member to read from a newspaper?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): The hon. Member may quote from the Prime Minister's speech.

Mr. Silverman: I am, of course, not reading a newspaper at all. What I am doing is quoting from the Prime Minister's speech last night, and quoting, as I am perfectly entitled to do, from the report of that speech in to-day's issue of "The Times." Of course, if the report is in accurate, the Prime Minister will have an opportunity of correcting it; meanwhile, I am entitled to assume that it is accurate. [An Hon. Member: "Well, get on with it."] I would have got on with it, but


for the interruptions. The Prime Minister said:
A free Parliament is odious to the Socialist doctrinaire. Have we not heard Mr. Herbert Morrison descant upon his plan to curtail Parliamentary procedure and pass laws simply by resolution of broad principle in the House of Commons, afterwards to be left by Parliament to the executive and to the bureaucrats to elaborate and enforce by Departmental regulations.
Well, is that a reprehensible thing to do or is it not? If it is not a reprehensible thing to do, and if the Prime Minister does not think it is a reprehensible thing to do, then it would be a most dishonest thing for him to tell the electors of this country, prior to a General Election, that he thinks it is. If, on the other hand, it is a reprehensible thing to do, then we are entitled to know why the Government are doing it this afternoon.

Lieut. - Commander Joynson Hicks: Is the hon. Gentleman seeking to suggest that he disapproves of the inclusion of these powers in the Bill?

Mr. Silverman: Like every other citizen of this country, I look to the public men of to-day, and especially to the Prime Minister, who is responsible for the Government, for guidance. I do not always accept it; I am not always bound to accept it. We still have the right of private judgment, but we are entitled to know what the Prime Minister means. We are entitled to know, when he says a thing, whether he means it, or whether he only says it. We are entitled to know whether he is advising the people of this country that it is a reprehensible thing for this party to do, what he himself is actively practising from day to day.
I have, personally, no objection to the structure of this Bill. I do not know how this kind of legislation could be enacted in any other way. I do not see how it would be possible to have a separate Bill on every occasion when a local authority wanted to acquire a bit of land. I think it is perfectly proper for a Bill to do what this Bill does, and set out, clearly and precisely, the principles upon which the Minister is to act, and then leave it to him, in his Department, to apply those principles to the situation and all aspects of the situation as and when they arise. I think it is perfectly right, and I think we shall have to legislate in that way and go on legislating in that way. The whole

history and development of Parliamentary procedure by all Parties has been in that direction. I see nothing wrong with it. Apparently the Minister sees nothing wrong with it. Apparently the Government see nothing wrong with it, but if they see nothing wrong with it, then I say that it is a disgraceful thing that the Prime Minister should seek to persuade the country that there is something wrong with it. At least he could make up his mind. If there is something wrong with it, do not do it; if there is nothing wrong with it, do not say there is. I thought it was useful to make those comments on the Bill.

5.23 p.m.

Mr. Lewis: The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) opened his speech by describing the Bill as a regrettable necessity. That is precisely how I regard the Bill. I think it is regrettable that we should have to consider the taking of part of public open spaces for the purpose of erecting buildings, even of a temporary character. But, as has been pointed out, the housing situation is so desperate that we are bound to use every means available to try to improve it, and improve it quickly. Therefore, I doubt whether there is any hon. Member here to-day who is readily prepared to vote against the Second Reading of this Bill. My object in taking part in the Debate is to ascertain from the Minister whether the case in which I am interested really comes within the scope of the Bill or not, because if it does not I should wish to put down an Amendment for the Committee stage. The wording of Sub-section (1) of Clause 1 appears to be very wide. It provides for a local authority using, for the purposes of the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act, 1944
land vested in them, or at their disposal, at the passing of this Act which is, or forms part of, an open space:
The words "land vested in them, or at their disposal," would seem very wide. Like many other hon. Members who have been here for some time, I had many disappointments in the past, in interpreting an Act, and I am very anxious to make sure, while we still have the Bill before us, that the case I have in mind is really covered. The Colchester town council have a recreation ground on land which belongs to the War Department. The War Department have granted the council a lease for 999 years of this land,


but the lease specifically provides that the land may only be used for the purposes of a recreation ground. I understand that the council approached the War Department, and that the War Department have no objection to temporary buildings being put up. The point I want to get clear from the Minister is this. Does the case in which a local authority holds land on lease, and holds it only for the specific purpose of using it as a recreation ground, come within the terms of Sub-section (1) of Clause 1? If it does not, I should certainly wish to put down an Amendment for the Committee stage to ensure that this case was covered. Perhaps the Minister who is to reply will give me a specific assurance on that point.

5.27 p.m.

Dr. Haden Guest: I wish to add my concurrence, on the passing of this Bill, to that given by other hon. Members, without any enthusiasm whatever, but merely as a regrettable necessity, as the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis) has said. What is of great importance at the present time is the erection of shelter or accommodation so that it shall be available for the men who are now in this country and their families, and the men who will very shortly be demobilised. May I remind the House—I do not think the date has been mentioned before to-day—that demobilisation begins on 18th June? On that day, large numbers of men will be demobilised, and, from that day onwards, there will be a continual flow of people coming home. I do not know how it is with other hon. Members of this House, but my own experience recently has been that I get, week by week and day by day, more and more letters asking the simple question from men in the Services—"Where am I, and other men of the Services, to live, if there is not enough accommodation?"
There would have been enough accommodation, and this Bill would not have been necessary, if the Government, at an earlier stage, had had the courage to put into operation the proposals of the Uthwatt Report on the acquirement of land and betterment, which had been worked out by a special committee. It would not then have been necessary to bring this Bill forward, so that the land used for public open spaces might be used far building purposes by local

authorities. The only reason why that Report was not put into operation was that it was opposed by Conservative Members of the Coalition Government, and, therefore, if there is a shortage of housing—and there certainly is, at the present moment, a tremendous shortage, which, unfortunately, this Bill, however many temporary houses it may help to erect, will not remedy—the responsibility for the shortage must rest very largely indeed upon the shoulders of the Conservative Party. On them also must rest the responsibility for having to use land, which ought to be used for recreation purposes, for the building of houses.
It would, indeed, be an ironical situation to find a soldier coming back, perhaps, from the B.L.A., housed in some temporary structure on the fringe of one of our parks, and thinking "Yes, I am living here and am sheltered here, but this is the place where my children ought to be playing games." I really think it is a most discreditable thing—although it was not possible during the war to make use of building labour, for the purpose of erecting houses, for it was very difficult indeed even to keep them adequately repaired, owing to the shortages of labour—that these powers of planning and land use were not obtained. I am sorry that the Minister of Town and Country Planning saw fit to intervene in this Debate earlier to make a statement with regard to his responsibility concerning town and country planning. He should have waited to hear the Debate. Had there been an adequate Town and Country Planning Bill at an earlier stage, there would have been no need for this temporary Measure, and it is only accepted now because no one positively dare refuse any expedient which allows us to put up any kind of shelter.
Before we have begun really to cope with the housing situation, we shall find that we have not only to put up temporary houses, but to adopt the expedient of the B.L.A. on the other side, where, for welfare purposes and temporary accommodation, they requisitioned houses, hotels and large buildings, and even, in one case, a royal palace in Brussels. We shall have to do something on the same scale here. We cannot have the indecent spectacle of men coming back from Europe, or India, or the Far East and not being able to find a home. Although it would not weary the House if I were to


quote from correspondence which I have received from soldiers and others, I do not wish to repeat it, because I am convinced that other Members have received correspondence of the same kind. In fact, we all have received correspondence. We hear fine sentiments about the Army and glowing references in the Prime Minister's speeches—and the Prime Minister would still have been a great man and a national leader had he not descended to being a Conservative partisan. We have all these speeches about the serving man, and yet when he comes back, there will be hundreds and possibly thousands of people for whom we shall not be able to find accommodation.
It is the fault of the whole of this House in not having done its duty in war-time by making provision, but it is particularly and emphatically the fault of the Conservative Party for not having enabled plans to acquire land on proper terms to be made. Instead of being limited to the use of park land and other places, we should have been able to put plans into operation to take what land was necessary inside or outside towns, in order to build houses. Until we have those larger powers, it will not be possible to deal adequately with the housing situation. That is one of the things on which the forthcoming General Election will turn.

5.33 P.m.

Mr. Keeling: I am not going to follow the example set by the hon. Member for North Islington (Dr. Haden Guest) and by almost all hon. Members who have spoken from the opposite benches, of making an Election speech. I prefer to reserve that for my constituents, but I would like in passing to remind the House that this Bill is not a Conservative Government Bill but a Bill introduced by the Coalition Government and it is backed by the ex-Secretary of State for Scotland, who is a member of the Labour Party. The right hon. Gentleman may have another engagement, but it is a pity that he did not follow the example of other ex-Ministers during the last few days who have come down to the House to support their own Bills. I address myself to points in the Bill. I think it is possible to get this grain of comfort from it, that the erection of temporary houses on open spaces

instead of on land suitable for houses may possibly expedite the erection of permanent houses on that land. I also think it possible that the mere fact that these temporary houses will be cumbering ground which ought to be reserved for recreation may stimulate the removal of these houses, of which everybody wants to see the end, and their super session by permanent houses.
I want to ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, who I believe is to reply, three questions. The Minister of Health gave the figures for the County of London of the number of temporary houses for which no land would be available but for this Bill. Can my hon. Friend give similar figures for Greater London, part of which I represent, where the need is equally or nearly as great? The second question I want to ask is this. Clause 1 (6) provides that when the period of authorisation ceases to be in force the local authority shall take steps to reinstate the land, or if the local authority asks the Minister to cause the houses to be removed, the Minister may do so. Apparently the Minister is under no obligation to remove the houses if the local authority defaults. Surely, the Bill ought to be amended to make it a duty of the Minister to see that any temporary buildings on open spaces are duly removed without waiting for requests from the local authority? The last question I want to ask my hon. Friend is as follows. The Minister gave an assurance regarding common rights and it rather appeared to me that that assurance was given at the last moment in reply to a request from the Commons, Footpaths and Open Spaces Society. May I ask my hon. Friend whether that assurance, which is satisfactory to the Society, could not be embodied in the Bill?

5.37 P.m.

Mr. E. J. Williams: The short reply to the first point made by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) is that obviously the party opposite must be very satisfied with the speech which was delivered by the Prime Minister yesterday and consequently it is not necessary to make any election speeches in this House.

Mr. Keeling: They would be out of Order, I think.

Mr. Williams: They have been allowed on. certain points, particularly on the question of regulations, otherwise they would have been ruled out of Order some time ago. I can think of no one in this House who is not prepared to expedite the passing of this Measure. If there is one thing in the country that is really seriously disturbing the people, it is the question of housing. The towns referred to where it will be necessary to encroach upon public spaces are certainly in a very bad way indeed. There are problems that we must face. In my constituency there are mining valleys where we have no recreation grounds or anything that may be described as a park, and I wonder whether the Ministry of Health is really facing this problem. It is difficult to find building space in these valleys at all, and even if they were found, we would be faced with mining subsidence on a very large scale.
A short time ago one of the authorities in my area placed before me—and the Minister is acquainted with the point—a site for a factory, but I was not prepared to agree that the site was a good one, for the obvious reason that it would have been substantially above the water line. It would have meant that we would have had to carry water to the top of the mountain, and there would also have been a sewage problem and difficulties with regard to bricks, mortar, cement and tiles, and it would have been uneconomical. There was no place to which the housing of the people could be directed unless they came outside the local authority area. I wonder whether the Ministry of Health, particularly having regard to the function of the Boundary Commission, is really looking into the question of whether it would not be possible for local authorities in congested areas, and faced with mining subsidence on a large scale, to be amalgamated for the purpose of providing space for housing the people.
A fortnight ago, the question was running through my mind of how many Members of Parliament reside in their constituencies. If I had my way, it would be an obligation upon Members to live in their own constituencies. If they did, they would be confronted with this sort of problem every week-end. I attended a conference a week ago not only of the local authorities in the district, but of the W.V.S. and all the people doing

social work in the constituency, on the question of housing. In my constituency we have one of the largest factories in the country. Part of Woolwich was transferred there at the commencement of the war, with the result that the population in the town increased by about 80 per cent. All the houses in the old county town are overcrowded and there has been an enormous inflation of rent. This is going to be a very serious problem, particularly during the transition period when the factory is slowly turning over from war production to peace products. Already, we are faced with the prospect of a redundancy of about 4,000 people by the end of July. People have to pay enormous rentals, particularly for furnished rooms. It is really becoming a ramp and the matter ought to be attended to seriously by the Minister of Health. People put a table and a few chairs into a room and charge their fellow citizens, who should be their neighbours, as much as 30s. or 35s. or £2 a week for the use of the room.
That is because we have never faced the housing problem in this country. We have practised scarcity in this regard as in so many other things, and arising from the scarcity during the inter-war years we are now faced with the aggravated problem of the war years themselves due to the transfer of population. Population was transferred from the East to the West, where it was safer to construct factories, and to man them so that they could work continuous shifts and produce the output required for the war. I ask the Minister of Health to face the problem, especially in our mining valleys. It is as grave as the problems of which we heard in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin). In Manchester, London and other places they have to encroach upon public parks in order to put up these temporary structures. In our mining valleys we have precisely the same problem; in fact, if we had the space no wise person would construct houses there. Already houses are sinking, and we are faced with flooding and all the problems which arise from it—problems of public health due to faulty sewage running into our river beds. We have never faced the fact that houses age like human beings. We have never faced the question of dealing with housing in a proper manner. We have not said, "This house shall be destroyed at


a certain age. We shall erect proper houses."
We have not dealt with the question of mining subsidence in a practical way. There are people owning their own houses, which they bought from colliery companies, and those houses are being destroyed daily by mining subsidence. There is no compensation. The people are losing their homes and have nowhere to go. Unless they can get into other local authority areas, and unless there is systematic planning, we shall never be able to house the people who are driven from their homes owing to mining subsidence and like calamities.
So I hope the Minister of Health will look at this other aspect of housing, which is apart from that of overcrowded cities. I feel certain that the people who came to Wales during the war will not return in large numbers, that the people who came to work at Bridgend and other places will not return to London or elsewhere if they can obtain proper housing facilities. The Minister of Health must deal with this great problem which has arisen from the transfer of population from one place to another.
I am certain that we in this House are quite prepared to see that the blitzed areas receive priority and that the next category, called the blighted areas, should come second. But we do want a housing drive, and I am sure that if we tackle the housing shortage of this country with the same vigilance as we gave to the prosecution of the war, we shall get over this difficulty within a reasonable time. We are all receiving letters from people who are coming back, and we find that returning soldiers are becoming very sceptical indeed. They are wondering if they are not just getting their legs pulled and whether there is any seriousness about this business at all. If they become complete sceptics, I am quite sure that the House of Commons will find it out in the long run. Regardless of the coming Election, I think every hon. Member in this House should realise that it is his bounden duty to see that those who have saved this country from disaster and are now returning home after having won the war, should have homes of their own That is the least they are entitled to, and it seems to us that the Government are really not facing the situation as it should be faced. I beg the Minister of Health to

deal with the problems I have placed before him, particularly as regards our mining valleys, and the territories which have become over-populated owing to the transfer of the population to munition factories and so on.

5.48 p.m.

Captain Duncan: The hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. E. J. Williams) will forgive me if I do not follow him up and down his mining valleys—

Mr. E. J. Williams: It would be very interesting if the hon. and gallant Member followed me at all.

Captain Duncan: —but I wish to devote my speech to the Bill and to the particular problem of London. The Minister, in opening this Debate, spoke of the allocation to London of 12,000 of these temporary bungalows—I prefer to call them bungalows rather than houses because I think that more accurately describes them. Of those 12,000 allocations, sites have been found for 10,301. The first question I ask the Minister is, how many sites have been developed and made ready for the erection of the actual houses? That is a question which ought to be answered by the Parliamentary Secretary in his reply so that we can see how speedily we are getting on with this business.
In spite of that large number of sites, we are still 1,700 short. The Kensington borough council, of which I am not a member, discussed this question last week. I attended the meeting because I knew this subject was coming up, and I also know the tremendous interest taken in the subject of housing and the serious need for accommodation in the neighbourhood. There was a very interesting debate on a high level, without regard to party, on this question of finding sites for temporary bungalows and the recommendation of the committee was that a part of Kensington Gardens be taken. Now that is a Royal park. The reasons given, broadly speaking, were that, on a balance of advantage and disadvantage, it was absolutely necessary that this site should foe used, because there was no other suitable site to be found in the borough. It is fair to say there are arguments on the other side. My hon. Friend the Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison), who is an alderman of the borough council, spoke against it and gave his reasons for voting against that proposal, but it was


carried by a majority, and therefore I wish to press upon the attention of my right lion, and learned Friend the decision of the council, namely, that, if possible, Kensington Gardens should be used. I knew at the time that special legislation would be necessary, but this Bill has appeared, and I was wondering whether I could frame special legislation to meet this particular point. Therefore, I have put on page 2016 of the Order Paper a new Clause which attempts to deal with this point. Perhaps it may save time, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if I read it, because then I shall not have to explain it.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think it will be called in due course.

Captain Duncan: Then I will not read it out. It is an attempt to get round the legal difficulty. If my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary can say that it does not do so, then there will really be no point in moving it in Committee. I would much rather get rid of this business to-day, instead of having to make two speeches on the subject. If it does not get round the legal difficulty, then I have nothing more to say, but I hope it may be a way out.
I must say one word to the Minister of Health himself. He said it was really not necessary to build on the Royal parks. My experience in my constituency, not during the last few weeks but for months, has been that this problem of housing is growing worse and worse. I could give my right hon. and learned Friend off hand at least 300 names of Servicemen and Service women who want accommodation of any kind they can get for the days when they come back.

Mr. Willink: May I make myself clear to the hon. and gallant Member, if he will be good enough to give way? In saying that it was not necessary to build on the Royal parks, I was not intending to convey for one moment that there was not need for a very much larger number of houses than we can possibly provide at the moment. What I meant was, that in order to find sites for the allocation to London of the temporary houses that will be produced, it will not be necessary to go into the Royal parks.

Captain Duncan: Naturally, I accept what my right hon. and learned Friend has said, but the effect of not building on the Royal parks, so far as Kensington is

concerned, would be that we should get 50 less temporary bungalows than we should otherwise do because, according to the chairman of the committee who deals with this, there are no suitable alternative sites in the borough.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I must warn the hon. and gallant Gentleman that if he debates his new Clause now it may not be selected to-morrow.

Captain Duncan: I am quite prepared for that.

Mr. Willink: A bird in the hand?

Captain Duncan: I have very little more to say. The real demand for housing is getting frightful. Every day I get letters and every other hon. Member is getting letters, and wherever one goes one meets this urgent demand for houses. It is very largely due to the war, as the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) has said—the fact that there has been a large amount of bombing, the lack of new building over the last six years, practically no maintenance—and this situation has been exacerbated by the return of the evacuees. Where children are coming back they are beginning to overcrowd houses which during the war have not been overcrowded. All these things are adding up to a really gigantic problem, and we in this House ought to leave nothing undone to prevent the speedy removal of that vital problem. Quite frankly, I cannot promise anybody that it is possible to remove that problem quickly. This little Bill gives some small assistance, and for that reason, although I loathe the idea of building on our open spaces, I am bound to approve of the Bill and hope that it will have a quick passage.

5.57 P.m.

Mr. McKinlay: This Bill, of course, in its application will not have very much effect in Scotland. I believe the difficulty really arises in the places which have been heavily bombed. There is however one observation I should like to make. This Bill seems to-be somewhat out of focus with the Act of 1944, if I understand the position correctly. The powers granted to local authorities under the 1944 provisions had, for their object, that local authorities could reap the benefit of the financial considerations of the 1935 Act, and the subsequent amending Acts, just as if the houses had been built to meet overcrowding. It must be borne in mind that no


local authority has power other than that conferred under the Act of 1944 to build houses of any kind for ordinary requirements. They are confined, in the letting of such houses, to families living in over crowded conditions or in properties which are unfit for human habitation. 1 was not in the House when the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act for England was discussed, but I certainly was here when the Secretary of State for Scotland explained the Act to the Scottish Members. If I remember correctly, the proposal became operative as from October last year and expires in October, 1947. This Bill is effective for a period of two years, and no longer, so that local authorities who may proceed under this Measure to put up such temporary accommodation will find that the period during which they can claim the subsidy of the Housing Act has expired before their programme is completed. I am very sorry that the Scottish Law Officers are not here, because I do not know whether there is any difference, in this instance, between England and Scotland.
I am perturbed as to why it should be necessary, in places other than London, to encroach on open spaces at all. If I read the situation correctly, we are to have permanent houses of iron, aluminium or some other metal coming off the assembly line and being sent to the sites ready for the erection. Having watched the erection of—I will not say bungalows, because the abortions they are putting up bear no resemblance to bungalows—these temporary houses, they seem to me to be a waste of public money. It means that houses coming off the assembly line can be assembled more quickly than the Mulberry houses. I do not see, from the Bill, where local authorities are restricted only to such parts of the open spaces as are of easy access to the services required. Temporary dwellings have an unhappy knack of becoming permanent houses. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] No, I am not making an election speech; this problem is far too serious. What annoyed me as regards what happened after the last war was having to clear some of these temporary houses from the city of Glasgow, 22 years after they were built. What is to prevent the Minister from issuing another order to extend the provisions of this Bill?

Mr. Willink: He cannot do it.

Mr. McKinlay: I am glad to have that assurance. I must congratulate the Minister on being able to look so far into the future that he can judge what the Minister of Health in his place will do ten years hence. I am satisfied that we will not even begin to cater fully for the homeless persons, let alone those who are overcrowded, in the next ten years. Do not let anyone delude himself. The housing problem in this country will not be solved in the next 20 years. It is easy for anybody to talk about putting up 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50,000 a year, but I have been connected with the building industry for the best part of 30 years, and I know exactly how quickly these things can be accomplished. If every man is to be permitted to do the job he wants where he wants, you will never solve the problem. Can I have an assurance from the Minister, or the Joint Under Secretary of State for Scotland—who is grossly over worked due to the absence of his chief—that sanction will only be given for the erection of temporary accommodation on the margins of open spaces or public parks where the required services are easy of access? I do not see any reason why a temporary house cannot be put on a permanent foundation. That aspect of the matter ought to be explored.
I would like to know whether the houses it is proposed to erect will be for ordinary requirements. Will they be suitable for young married people and young couples with families who at present have no homes? The temporary house that it is proposed to erect is useless, and futile as a contribution to solve the overcrowding problem, unless it is overcrowding caused by dual occupancy, where married sons and daughters are living with their parents. I think Scottish Members are entitled to ask the Law Officers for Scotland for an interpretation of these matters, because I do not think that the Minister of Health is skilled in Scottish law. He may be, but I do not think so. I want a further assurance with regard to the extension of powers to local authorities to get the financial benefits of the Housing Act already on the Statute Book, which was limited to two years to enable them to get round the snag of the conditions imposed on first letting. That Act expires on 1st October, 1947. The two years provided for in this Bill are from the passing of the Act. Therefore,


the two years period expires in one Act nine months before it does in the other, and I want to know whether a local authority will qualify for the subsidy under the amended Act for the full period, supposing that they had commenced work?

6.7 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Hamilton Kerr): Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House if I intervened at this moment to answer briefly some of the many and varied points which hon. Members have made in the course of the Debate. My right hon. and learned Friend has given such a lucid and detailed exposition of the main provisions of this Bill that I am sure the House would not want me to weary it merely by reiterating, in a less skilful form, what has already been said. At the same time, two points stand out quite clearly. First, that this Bill, in spite of some of the arguments of hon. Members opposite, is a child of the Coalition. I hope that the present unhappy divorce which exists between the two parents will not prevent the legitimisation of this infant. Secondly, it is an emergency Measure. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) said, the peculiar conditions of the war have made the passage of this Bill absolutely vital. For some five or six years our people have been subjected first of all to heavy air bombardment and then the persistent attack by flying bombs and rockets, and the damage inflicted is so great that we must take emergency measures to deal with the situation.
The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) made several points with which I should like to deal. He raised the question of the ten-year period. It is clearly stated in the Bill that it cannot operate beyond the period of ten years. Should any future Minister wish to prolong it, or innovate a new Bill, he would have to bring it before Parliament. With regard to the cost of renovation or making good on the sites, the local authority, at the end of the period, could request the Minister for permission to remove the houses, and any cost of making good would fall on the national Exchequer. Further, the hon. Member showed some apprehension with regard to the choice of sites. If I may say so, as one who was privileged to live for the first two years of the war in the

East End of London, I know how precious these spaces are to the people there. Let me assure him on this point. My right hon. and learned Friend must consult with the Minister of Town and Country Planning, and only after having obtained his consent, after the Minister of Town and Country Planning has assured himself that no other more suitable sites exist, will a certificate be given for the Minister of Health to proceed with his plans. In every case where possible these temporary houses will be placed along roads where they will interfere less with all the precious amenities of the people.
The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) made several points. I will not follow him in what I presume was a trial gallop for the housing Debase stakes on Thursday, but I would say this: With reference to the method of procedure that the Minister will follow, first of all, after the Minister of Town and Country Planning has assured himself, as I say, that no other better sites can be found, a certificate will be issued to the Minister of Health allowing him to proceed with the plans.

Mr. Silkin: Is there no stage at which the public is informed as to what it is proposed to do. Might they not be faced with a fait accompli?

Mr. Kerr: The local authority discusses the proposition, and presumably it will then come before the public attention of those concerned. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Lewis) raised the point of a particular piece of ground in his constituency, which I gathered is now under the jurisdiction of the local authority for the purpose of recreation. Such a piece of ground; I am informed, comes within the scope of this Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) asked three questions. He asked, in particular, for figures concerning the allocation of temporary houses in greater London, and sites already approved. Fifteen thousand houses have been allocated to the Greater London area, and 10,216 sites have already been approved.

Mr. Keeling: Does that exclude the county?

Mr. Kerr: Yes, Sir. My hon. Friend likewise asked a question concerning commons rights, and made the suggestion that the agreement the Minister


announced should be incorporated in the Bill. I hope he will accept the assurance which my right hon. and learned Friend gave him, as I understand that its incorporation in the Bill would be somewhat complicated.

Mr. Keeling: What about my other point, with regard to Clause 1, Subsection (6)?

Mr. Kerr: If my hon. Friend will permit me I will look into that, and communicate with him. My hon. Friend the Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) also asked for a certain figure. I have not got it in my possession at the moment, but I will make it my business to communicate with him and inform him accordingly. With that, I hope I have covered some of the main points which have been raised in the course of the Debate, and I hope that the House will now be disposed to give this Bill a Second reading.

Sir Joseph Lamb: What about the temporary nature of this Bill? My hon. Friend said it could not be extended, but surely no Government can pledge a future Government as to the extension of a Bill, or the bringing in of a new Bill.

Mr. Kerr: The terms of the Bill lay it down precisely that it cannot be extended beyond ten years. If a new Bill is contemplated it must be laid before Parliament, and approved by Parliament.

Mr. McKinlay: Am I right or wrong in saying that one Act expires on 1st October, 1947?

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Willink: As this question savours of the law, perhaps I might answer it. The hon. Member is referring to the Housing (Temporary Provisions) Act, which provides for subsidies for two years up to 1st October, 1947. The hon. Member may rest entirely at ease with regard to the quite separate and different two years referred to in Clause 1, Sub-section (1), of this Bill. That has nothing whatever to do with subsidies or finance, but' is simply a period within which the Minister can give authority for the use of open spaces. It simply sets a limit, and it will be, let us imagine, something like 12th June, 1947, if this Bill becomes law on 12th June, 1945. However many certificates or requests the Minister gets from

local authorities, he will not be able to authorise the use of open spaces for temporary houses after that date. Within two years from the passage of this Bill it will be quite clear whether there will be any need to do this any more. That period will have no effect whatever on finance.

6.17 p.m.

Mr. Logan: I listened with interest to the Minister's speech and to the Parliamentary Secretary's propaganda talk. I wonder whether this Bill is propaganda or whether it is really an attempt to do some service. I live in a city which has been very much devastated by bombing. When I look around that city and then consider what is in this Bill, I wonder whether this is a housing proposition that we can put to the country. It provides for temporary accommodation on little bits of narrow sites. Houses of a permanent character ought to have been put up in some of these areas even during the war. There has been a very great amount of derelict labour in some of our congested areas, and houses not of a temporary but of a permanent sort could have been put up in some of our large cities, especially the city of Liverpool.
I do not know whether there is very much life in the Minister; I have not seen any great stimulant from him with regard to the building of houses, except in this proposition. We have been told that some houses are to be put up, and there has been a Debate as to whether or not open spaces should be reserved. The fresh-air fiends say that the open spaces must not be touched. They are a sanctum sanctorum, and must must not be used. I say to the Minister that, open spaces or any other spaces, it is time he set about putting up some houses in the city of Liverpool. One hon. Member has talked about 300 applicants for houses. In Liverpool the lists run into thousands. We have had lists going up to 12,000 or 14,000, and then we have wiped out the lists and started all over again. Whole streets in the city have disappeared. Families have gone away, and now many of them are about to return.
The Service men will be returning. Do as much as we will in Liverpool, we shall not be able to meet the requirements of the people. There is talk about temporary accommodation for 10 years. You


will never solve the problem in 10 years. It is said that the temporary houses having been erected, they will be demolished in 10 years' time. That demolition would come at a time when houses will be absolutely essential. It is nonsensical for the Minister to say that the houses will be used for a period of only 10 years. Those houses will stand and will be used as long as there is a lack of other houses. I have been a member of the Housing Committee in the city of Liverpool for 18 or 20 years. We are not able to meet the housing requirements arising out of the war. We are not able to face the situation.
Nothing has been said in this Debate about priority rights. We are talking in terms of local authorities building houses, but nothing has been said about how quickly the authorities are willing to move. In the city of Liverpool we have plans laid out, and it is the Government that have never moved; I hope they will be moved before we deal with the temporary situation in Liverpool. Someone has got to deal with the position. Have the Government decided what they really intend to do with regard to building? They know very well that it is impossible for these temporary houses for a period of 10 years to meet the demands of the thousands of people who want houses. In Liverpool thousands of people want houses. Thousands of young people have been married since the war began. The position of people who lived in the city and had to evacuate is now three times more difficult because of the demands of the young men who have married during the war and will be returning when the war is over. The question of priority will arise, whether the returning soldier is to be given priority or whether it is to be given to those who were blitzed out of their houses. Unless there is an abundance of houses, there will be great divisions in the local authorities over that question.
This temporary Measure, although it may look all right in the dying days of the Government, is no way of dealing with the problem of housing. Every returning soldier will require a home in which to live. It is no use trying to get over the situation by saying over the radio that there are going to be homes for the soldiers when they return. Any Minister who says that is either betraying the country by giving false information, or if he does not know it is false, has no right

to be a Minister. If the Minister of Health had as many calls about houses as we get from people in our constituencies, believe me, he would be a little more restless than he is to-day. It is very easy for the Minister to walk into the House and have no responsibility with regard to housing, but in the areas in which we live hundreds of people come along and want to know what is to be done. We are told that this Bill is the answer to the sailors', soldiers' and airmen's prayer: temporary houses on narrow sites. The Ministry, which has priority rights on the radio, says to the people, "Look what we are doing for you—houses for the returning soldiers, homes for the people, and coal at 3s. 6d. a cwt. to burn inside them." Tell us a better story. I hope that in the next few weeks there will be another tale to tell: the story of a departing Government that leaves behind it not only the memory of houses never put up, but wishes never fulfilled.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Turton: The hon. Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. Logan) has been very scathing about the Bill. I would point out that his Party is jointly and severally responsible for the Bill, and although he may make an election speech in the House this evening, he should remember that the joint author of the Bill is one of the leaders of his Party. I am sorry that the course of the Debate has meant that we have had two Government speeches in two and a quarter hours on the Second Reading, and that those who speak after the second Government speech may not be able to have replies to their points.

Mr. Ede: There have been four Government speakers.

Mr. Turton: Probably when I was out for a few minutes the other two came in. I hope there will be some opportunity for a further reply. It would facilitate the further progress of the Bill if we were to have a reply to our points, as it would enable us to avoid lengthening the Committee stage. This Bill is a very drastic Measure. The housing position is so urgent that none of us wishes to oppose the Measure, but I think we are entitled to have a great deal more assurance than we have had as to how the Measure is to be carried out. The Minister has given a very satisfactory assurance about commons, and I feel sure that assurance is


quite sufficient, but will he give a further assurance about playing fields? The National Playing Fields Association has spent £1,500,000 in grants to provide playing fields, and 50 per cent. of that expenditure has been devoted to the lay out. Can we have an assurance that local authorities will be discouraged from using playing fields where there has been a great deal of expenditure on the lay-out?
The only other point I want to raise is one that has been mentioned by other hon. Members. It refers to Clause 1, Sub-section (6). The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) said he was not interested in what is going to happen after 10 years. I think he takes too gloomy a view of his election prospects. I should have thought that after 10 years he might have a chance of getting Back into the House again. I think all of us should be deeply interested in what is to happen after 10 years to the open spaces that are being used for temporary houses. There were some wooden hutments built at Eltham, in Woolwich, in the last war as temporary houses, and they are still there. I want to be satisfied that, under Sub-section (6) of Clause 1, these temporary houses will be removed from the open spaces. It is not enough to say that after 10 years the authority will no longer be there. It is not enough to say that the local authority may remove them, or shall forthwith take all the steps requisite to remove them. There are in the Bill at present no default powers. If a local authority fails to carry out the terms of the Sub-section, the temporary houses will remain on the open spaces. I ask the Minister, in the Committee stage, to put in some words that will give him or his successor power to force a local authority which is unwilling to remove the temporary houses from those open spaces.

Mr. Logan: Even though people are living in them?

Mr. Turton: You could not move a house bodily with the people inside. The temporary housing is for ten years only. That is a pledge. I shall be sorry if the hon. Member is going to make election speeches in the country stating that in his view temporary houses should continue for longer than ten years. The only condition for these houses is that they should be there for ten years and no more.

Mr. Logan: Does the hon. Member want to get powers to dispossess people at the end of ten years when there are no houses for them?

Mr. Turton: I do not take such a gloomy, view of the result of the Election. I believe that the result will be that houses will be put up because—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Charles Williams): We cannot go into that matter now.

Mr. Turton: I am sorry that I am not allowed to answer the hon. Member's intervention. It would certainly shorten my speech. May we be told that some Minister will have power to keep an eye on local authorities to see that the pledge is fulfilled?

6.33 p.m.

Mr. Martin: I rise to make a small point which refers to London. Some local authorities will have a very limited amount of open space at their disposal. Most of these will be authorities for whom it is extremely desirable that there should be ample room for the children in the borough to have recreation. Does the Minister propose to offer facilities to such local authorities to apply for building space outside their own area? I rather regretted what the Minister said about the Royal parks. I think the use of them would be in some measure a solution of the difficulty. It is exceedingly difficult for the overcrowded boroughs to find space for young children to play. It is impossible for them to go the great distance often involved to get to the large parks in other parts of London. At the same time if you are going to leave sufficient space for the children in these localities to play, which are often the most overcrowded and the most heavily bombed, there will be a serious shortage of accommodation for temporary houses. That particular problem could be solved if the Royal parks were available. It might also conceivably be solved by making space available in the areas of other authorities.

6.35 p.m.

Sir Percy Harris: I think the Bill is necessary as an Emergency Bill, but there has been a note of pessimism running through the speeches on both sides. Obviously a Bill of this kind cannot be justified, unless we


have the optimism to believe that in ten years this appalling problem will be solved. Hon. Members opposite insist that these houses should not be permanent. Our open spaces are our most precious heritage. Not long ago we were fighting to preserve our commons. It would be appalling after that struggle if we converted a large amount of our open space permanently to building purposes. We can only justify the Bill if the House on all sides shows its determination by a new technique—by mass production—to make good the deficiency, not by temporary houses, which are unsatisfactory, but by permanent, well planned, well designed houses before the life of these houses reaches ten years. I am appalled by some of the temporary houses that have been put in London—these Nissen huts.

Mr. Willink: I understand that these emergency hutments do not come within the category of temporary houses at all. They are not intended to last more than two years. They are being used nowhere except in areas which were subjected to the very heavy attacks of last year. They are described as emergency hutments. They are not within this Bill at all.

Sir P. Harris: I am glad that I intervened to get that statement, because they are an apology for a home and they are deeply resented by many people to whom they are offered. They are cold, draughty and unsatisfactory, and likely to be hot in the summer and cold in the winter. I am glad to understand that on the sites to be provided by this Bill such caricatures of homes will not be erected.

6.37 p.m.

Sir William Davison: I think this is a thoroughly bad Bill. It might more properly be entitled "a Bill to enable local authorities to build bungalows on the cheap." My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Kensington (Captain Duncan) referred to the debate that we had in the Kensington borough council a week ago when the housing committee brought forward a motion to erect 50 bungalows on the West side of Kensington Gardens. I opposed it, but the arguments were very informative and, I think, justify my suggestion that the Bill would more properly be called one to enable local authorities to build bungalows on the cheap. The committee

urged the proposal to put up 50 bungalows in Kensington Gardens for several reasons. One was that it was a level piece of ground and another was that there were already drains there, because an air-raid shelter had been put up. Other similar reasons were adduced to justify this encroachment on one of London's all too few open spaces. I think the London County Council has estimated that we are something like 5,000 acres short of open space. I opposed the motion, not because I am not fully alive to the urgent need of providing housing for the men returning from the Services, but this is a mere drop in the bucket. Hearing the supporters of the motion one would have thought that with these 50 bungalows the whole housing difficulty of West London would be satisfied.
I am inclined to agree with the hon. Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. Logan). We are told that this is a temporary Measure limited to ten years. Is there any security that in ten years' time there will be adequate houses for the people in these 50 bungalows, and is it suggested that they should be thrown into the street unless there are adequate houses to put them into? The ten years' limit is all eye-wash. I also agree with the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay). I think many of these temporary bungalows ought to have foundations which can, eventually, be used for permanent houses. You cannot do that on playing fields or in London parks or gardens. This is in my opinion a most unfortunate Measure. When we were dealing with the Requisitioned Land Bill it was suggested that, where any open space was taken, an equivalent open space should be provided, and that where land had been purchased by a local authority for playing fields or for recreation it should not be taken by the decision of the Commission appointed under the Bill but that it should require a resolution of this House. Our decisions in these matters, which were obtained with great difficulty, are immediately followed by this Bill to enable our all too few local spaces to be built upon.

Captain Cobb: What does my hon. Friend propose to do by way of providing this accommodation quickly if we are not going to use these strips or parks? Does he propose to build these bungalows on permanent housing sites?

Sir W. Davison: Local authorities have power to acquire land. We all admit the urgent need for houses, but the arguments which justify putting up 50 bungalows in Kensington Gardens because the land is flat and there are drains would justify building houses all over Kensington Gardens. If there is such an urgent need that any open space must be taken, that would justify building on parks, recreation grounds and any open spaces. It is altogether wrong that our all too limited open spaces should be used for this purpose.

Mr. George Griffiths: When the hon. Member moved that Amendment at the council, was it carried?

Sir W. Davison: It was defeated, and that makes it the more deplorable. Members of the council were led away by the fallacious arguments used in this House.

6.45 p.m.

Sir Robert Tasker: A suggestion was made by an hon. Member opposite that permanent foundations should be laid down for temporary houses. I hope that will not be done. Let me tell him from many years of building experience that that would be wasting money. The Minister has been challenged because he does not include the Royal parks. The reason is that in London there are more than 400 squares and open spaces. In Finsbury, for example, which is supposed to be a very congested area, there are the following squares: Northampton, Wilmington, Myddleton, Claremont, Lloyd, Granville, Holford and Percy. In addition, there is considerable open space in Rosebery Avenue and Percy Circus. Most of the open spaces in London are controlled by the borough councils; there are a few, such as the Thames Embankment Gardens, which are under the jurisdiction of the London County Council. Nobody likes temporary houses, but the Minister is entitled to support for this Bill on another ground. There are no other places where he can erect them. In my constituency there is little of Theobalds Road left; if temporary structures were put up where buildings have been demolished, how are permanent structures to be built? That is one of the good reasons for this Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) suggested that the Minister should look round and find places where there is only one house to the acre.

As a member of the Town and Country Planning Committee of the L.C.C., he will know of the vandalism of his council in Woodbury Down, where houses which had about 1½ per acre were demolished. My hon. Friend's suggestion will not help the Minister, because if compulsory power has to be exercised to acquire land where there is only one house per acre, it will take a long time to acquire compulsorily and the houses would have to be demolished before other structures could be erected. The point has been raised whether the sites would be ready. The answer must be in the affirmative, because the London squares face roads already made; they are, therefore, already sewered and have electricity, gas and water mains. The question of finance has been raised, but it seems to me that, in the eagerness to secure a grant-in-aid from the Treasury towards the expenses of the local authority, it has been overlooked that these temporary buildings will be rated and that the local authority will enjoy a certain amount of income from them with very little expense.
I regret the provision that the Minister of Health must appeal to the Minister of Town and Country Planning. I regard that as window dressing. It is what my hon. Friend the Member of South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) referred to as "eyewash." How can the Minister of Town and Country Planning say that a temporary building on a London square does not destroy the amenities? Obviously it must do. It is suggested that these temporary buildings will be in use only ten years, but that provision in a Bill cannot commit future Parliaments, and it means just nothing. We know that there are so-called temporary buildings round London to-day which were put up after the last war, some remain to-day because of the shortage of housing accommodation. I urge my right hon. and learned Friend to stop playing about with the housing problem, to employ the people who have been in building all their lives, to stop this "Passed to you, please," business, which means that at the end of six months the plans are just where they were before and nothing has been done. Let the Minister call in the builders who know the work, take the necessary precautions to ensure they do not plunder the taxpayer. I regard the ordinary builder as just as honest as Members of Parliament and other men. They can do the job, but


they must have the labour and material. With great reluctance I would have to go into the Lobby to support the Bill if it were challenged, because at present there is no alternative.

6.54 p.m.

Mr. Ede: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall not trouble him to go into the Division Lobby in support of the Bill. We recognise that, in the unfortunate circumstances of our time, we have to take the steps that are forecast in this Bill. The Bill is much more widely drawn than the policy which the Minister has indicated he intends to pursue. I understand it is the intention of the Government that only the fringes of parks and commons shall be developed. It is important that this Measure should not be used, as it could be, completely to cover a common or a park with houses. I understand that the justification for it is that along the edges of parks and commons, where there are main roads with services, it is possible to develop housing very quickly. Clearly, if you develop the back land in a park or a common, you have not the same justification for using the machinery of this Bill. I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will give a clear pledge that it is the intention of the Government that only the fringes shall be developed.
When I was rather more closely associated with the right hon. and learned Gentleman than I now am, I had some correspondence with my opposite number in his Department with regard to the utilisation of a common at Epsom. Epsom is just on the edge of the Greater London area, and Epsom Common is the boundary of the Metropolitan Police district, which is generally regarded as the end of Greater London for purposes like this. A few years ago the Epsom and Ewell Urban Council, as it then was, acquired this common. It had previously belonged to a lord of the manor, and the council acquired the soil of the common and are now the freeholders. The land, therefore, is vested in them, and if any common rights survive, it is only vested in them subject to the rights of the commoners. I doubt whether anybody could prove that he had now a right of common over this land. There was a proposal before the Epsom and Ewell Town Council to take this land and use it for housing purposes. There is a great amount of

privately-owned land in Epsom that could be acquired if the local authority would exercise its compulsory powers. It has the great advantage that it is on the chalk, whereas Epsom Common is on deplorably wet clay, and it would be an advantage to the people having to live there if they could be housed on the chalk and not on the clay.
I hope that in places like that the Minister of Town and Country Planning and the Minister of Health will see that the pledges that have been given in the House to-day are honoured, and that the local authority are told that, inconvenient as it may be to serve a compulsory order on a landowner, they must see that the privately-owned land is first used before any action is taken to use land that is in public ownership and is used for the purpose of obtaining air and exercise by the inhabitants of the district and of a far wider area. My hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) asked for a pledge with regard to the removal of these temporary houses. I heard three Members of the Government speak, and I regret I was not in the House when the fourth Member spoke, but I am told that no answer was given to this question. Can we have a pledge that when it is possible to remove these houses, those erected on public open spaces shall be removed before those erected on private land, where, in the area of an authority, both types of land have been brought into use? It would, clearly, be indefensible to remove temporary houses from private land and retain houses on public open spaces which have been acquired in the past for the enjoyment of the community.
I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will ensure that in the administration of this Measure the most clear instructions are given that the sate guards he mentioned in moving the Second Reading of this Bill are observed on every occasion, because I am sure he will feel, from the discussion in the House this afternoon, that nothing but the deplorable circumstances of our times would have induced any Member of this House to assent to this Measure. It is recognised, I presume, on both sides of the House, that just as between the last war and this war unemployment made and broke Governments, so it may well be that unless the housing problem is tackled with great resolution by whoever may happen


to be in power during the next 10 or 15 years, the housing problem will also probably determine the fate of Governments.

7.1 p.m.

Mr. Willink: It is only with the leave of the House that I can say anything, but a number of hon. Members have asked for assurances and if I may give them I should be glad to do so. With regard to the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), who referred to playing fields, on which money—the money of the public, charitable or otherwise—has been spent for the recreation of our people, I can certainly assure him that local authorities will be strongly discouraged from using playing fields for this purpose. Indeed, I hope there will not be any case where land so laid out will be passed by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Town and Country Planning, or indeed submitted by a local authority. It should be possible to obtain the total area which I envisage being dealt with under this Bill without using land of that kind.
My hon. Friend went on to express doubts about the vigour and clarity of the local authority's duty to remove the houses. I assure him that the Bill, which says that any authorisation shall be for a period of not longer than 10 years, means this: unless Parliament amends the law, at the end of 10 years a local authority not using this land as an open space will be liable to an action brought by any one of its ratepayers for misusing the land, which by that time, the authorisation having run out, it will be bound to use again as an open space. There are other protections also, however, because if my hon. Friend will look back at the earlier Act, the Act of 1944, he will see provisions which operate in two directions; the Minister can force the local authority to act and the local authority can force the Minister to act.
The hon. Member for Central Southwark (Mr. Martin) was troubled, and naturally so, about the particularly precious quality of the open spaces in such an area as his own constituency. I think it is extremely doubtful whether the London County Council will submit a proposition that a small Southwark square should be used for temporary housing. What one has much more in mind is the fringe of such an area—whether this particular area will

come under consideration I do not know—as Clapham Common. That is the sort of area which is much more in one's mind as appropriate. The right hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) restored some balance to the Debate when he deprecated the pessimism which was being expressed as to what our housing conditions would be in 10 years, and others took the same point of view. I can deal rather shortly -with the speech of the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison), who was not in his place to hear my exposition of the Bill and who is not in his place now. To say, as he did by implication, that to enable the city of Manchester to take the 3,000 houses which are its allocation, whereas without this Measure it would not be able to take more than 1,500, to say that that is a drop in the bucket in such an area is to misdescribe the whole problem.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) asked me for one or two assurances. He spoke with regard to fringes. Whether the assurance which he asked me to give related to the action which I personally would take or some Government of this complexion would take in the administration of this Bill, I do not really know. All I can properly say to-day is this: that the applications which we have received so far are in the great majority of cases, with only one or two exceptions, for the use of what would properly be described as fringes. I have in mind one case of a very large park of several hundred acres, which tapers down to something of a point—I think it is in Manchester—and the proposition there is to use a little more than the fringe, but a very small proportion indeed of the whole park. It would be lamentable to use the whole of this open space, but it would not be fair for me to express the view that fringes and fringes only are to be used in every case. After all, the justification for the Bill is in the speed and the economy of acquiring sites where there are roads and services. It is also in the desirability of using, in accordance with the best judgment of the local authority itself, the planning Minister and the housing Minister, the land which is available, and it may be that to go a little beyond the fringe and to take a corner will be proper in a few cases. A great deal of privately-owned land has already been taken for these purposes. Indeed,


I have been in the position of a defendant in the courts of justice because my authorisation to take such private land intended for the building of private enterprise houses was challenged. The right land must be taken in every case.
That is all one can say. Strict lines cannot be drawn. Nor would it be right for me to say what would be done with regard to the order of removal. This is clear, however, that there is in this legislation a fixed limit for the removal of these houses. The intention of the Bill is clear: whatever happens, this 10 years is final with regard to open spaces. With regard to other sites, there may have to be in some particular area some extension. With regard to the use of open spaces there can be no extension without the further sanction of Parliament.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House, for To-morrow.—[Commander Agnew.]

Orders of the Day — LOCAL GOVERNMENT (BOUNDARY COMMISSION) BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair]

CLAUSE 1.—(Establishment of Local Government Boundary Commission.)

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Muff: I beg to move, in page 1, line 17, after "may," insert:
after consultation with associations representing local authorities.
I am moving this Amendment in order to elicit from the Minister what is going to hoppen but I would like the Minister to accept this Amendment which has a fair amount of support. I believe the Association of Municipal Corporations would very much like to have these words inserted in order that nothing shall be done without consultation, and so that there shall not be any encroachment on their liberties and their duties.

Mr. Colegate: I support this Amendment. The relations between the Ministry of Health and the associations representing local authorities are very happy and, if I may say so, the parties are equally helpful on both sides.

I cannot see that there would be any real objection to inserting these words. It would ensure that the work would be done more smoothly in regard to certain matters which might otherwise cause difficulty. Perhaps the Minister will accept the Amendment; I hope he will. I urge him to accept it, because I feel certain it will be greatly to the benefit of his Department and would be greatly appreciated by the associations concerned.

Sir Joseph Lamb: I wish to support this Amendment. I anticipate that we may be told that what is asked for in this Amendment is the general custom. I know it is, but I do not see why it should not be put in the Bill. After all, Governments do change, and it is just as well that it should be in the Bill, so that it would place compulsion upon a Government which was not quite so amenable as some we have had.

Mr. Craik Henderson: I ask the Minister to give this matter sympathetic consideration. I agree with my hon. Friend that it would relieve anxiety if this Amendment were accepted. I, therefore, ask the Minister to give it sympathetic consideration.

Mr. Silkin: I cannot imagine any Minister making regulations prescribing the general principles upon which the Commission should act, without first consulting the local authorities. Any Minister who attempted to do that would be signing his own death warrant. I moved many Amendments of this kind in connection with the Town and Country Planning Bill and in every case I was given the assurance that, in fact, local authorities would be consulted. I accepted the assurance. It seems to me that if the words were inserted here, the Minister would be under an obligation to consult the local authorities, and where the words were not inserted he would say that he was under no obligation. I am content to leave this to the good sense of the Minister, assuming he will give the assurance that the local authorities shall be consulted. Possibly other legislation might be weakened by the insertion of these words. Therefore, I suggest that if the Minister does give the assurance we can accept it, because I am sure that the present Minister and his successor will give effect to such an assurance.

7.15 P.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson: With much of what the hon. Member for Peck-ham (Mr. Silkin) has just said I am in entire agreement. I cannot conceive that the Minister would make or approve such Regulations without consulting the associations of local authorities, as he always does, but there may be some advantage in inserting in the Bill an obligation on him to do what he normally does in the course of his transactions as Minister of Health. If, on the other hand, my right hon. and learned Friend says, as I am sure he will, that he can give us an assurance that those consultations will take place, I agree with the hon. Member that no great advantage would be gained in putting on him such statutory obligations. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will be able to give us that assurance.

Sir Patrick Hannon: I hope that the Minister will see his way, in view of the friendly associations which have existed for so long between his Ministry and the local authorities, to give us the assurance which is asked for. I cannot conceive a situation in which the Minister would not, in relation to the operation of this Bill, consult local authorities with regard to these difficult and embarrassing boundary questions as they arise from time to time. In the city of Birmingham we have been caused a great deal of embarrassment in dealing with our boundary questions. No doubt my right hon. and learned Friend will see that it will be of great importance, in making the Measure effective, that he should consult local authorities.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Willink): With the spirit of what has been said by all, I am in complete agreement, but in my view it would be better not to insert the proposed words in the Clause. It is, of course, my intention, as I feel sure it would be the intention of anybody occupying my office, to have consultations on a matter of this kind. Perhaps I may remind the Committee that when first we discussed the White Paper I said, with regard to the framing of the broad principles:
This, of course, is a subject which I would wish to discuss with the local government associations before framing and laying before Parliament directions on such an important matter.

After ah intervention I made it clear:
I should like to discuss the proposals informally with the local government associations, as is so frequently done in these local government matters, in, order to obtain the views of people of experience. No bargains would be made, of course."—[Official Report, 15th February, 1945; Vol. 408, c. 426.]
In the Second Reading Debate on 9th May, I said:
I am sure that everyone would agree that the framing of these general principles and general directions is a matter on which consultation with the local government associations would be not only proper but necessary."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th May, 1945; Vol. 410, c. 1952.]
In substance, I have given, I think, the pledge on two occasions. There is this difficulty, that the actual wording of the Amendment would not be quite satisfactory. All sorts of associations representing local authorities may appear and no doubt London local authorities would have to be excluded from this matter particularly. The Amendment should have some such words as
such associations as appear to the Minister to be concerned,
or something of that kind. I hope, however, that the Committee will accept the view expressed by the three Members who last spoke that the words on the Order Paper are not necessary.

Mr. Hubert Beaumont: I am rather puzzled at the moment as to accepting the Minister's assurance that he intends to consult the local authorities on every proper occasion. I am also puzzled why he cannot accept the proposed words or wording which will bear the same meaning. Local authorities are apprehensive on this matter. They feel that if the words are not actually in the Measure, a time might come when they would not be consulted in the matter. I hope that the Minister can go so far as to consider the possibility of framing words which will express the desire of the local authorities, and at the same time accord with the assurances of the Minister.

Mr. Willink: The trouble is that we are trying to get the Bill to-day.

Mr. Muff: The reply of the Minister is most disappointing. My hon. Friend on our Front Bench referred to the London County Council, but the L.C.C. is not England. We are speaking for the provincial authorities and it is more necessary for them to have this Amendment


than it is for an authority like the L.C.C. I had better not say "a minor authority." I want to impress upon the Committee that we do not want to see the Boundary Commission set up and then to find either that it has been "sold a pup" or that the pass has been sold. I refuse to withdraw the Amendment and I hope that the hon. Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon) will join me as one of the Tellers in a Division.

Captain Prescott: I would ask my right hon. and learned Friend if he can give us a more specific assurance than he has given up to now that, when these matters are considered, the local authorities will be consulted fully and will be able to make known their views on the matters. I can assure the Committee that there is widespread concern on this point. I hope my right hon. and learned Friend will find it possible to give a more accommodating answer than he has given. I do not think any of us wish to press the matter to a Division, but we ourselves, and our local authorities, are very much concerned. I ask that he should consider this matter more favourably than he has done up to now.

Mr. George Griffiths: The Minister should insert these words in the Bill. He has met local authorities in the past. I have been a member of a deputation from local authorities. I am speaking now for my urban district council; we are very perturbed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will not always be at the Ministry of Health, and if these words are not inserted in the Bill, any Minister of Health can please himself whether he consults local authorities or not. The Minister has consulted them in the past, so what is there to prevent these few words being added to the Bill? I ask the Minister to think about it. Otherwise it will leave a certain amount of suspicion in the minds of local authorities of what is going to be done in the future. I beg of the Minister to allow the Amendment to be inserted.

Mr. Willink: I was moved in the direction I took by the weighty speeches of two Members, whom I know to be very familiar, as familiar as any of us, with local government matters. But the weight of opinion in the Committee is, I feel, in favour of relieving any anxiety on this point—though I am bound to say I was not aware of any anxiety at present

among the local authority associations as to whether they would be properly consulted. I did indicate that there were difficulties about these precise words. What would undoubtedly be a better form would be the form which appears in the Housing Act, 1936:
after consultation with such associations of local authorities as appeal to him to be concerned.
If my hon. Friend would withdraw his Amendment, perhaps the other form could then be moved, and I should be willing to accept it.

Mr. Muff: I thank the Minister for his accommodating action in this matter. The words he has proposed are better and I should say are an improvement on the Amendment which I proposed. Like many other hon. Members I have served many years' apprenticeship in provincial local government, which has been a stand by to this country. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Willink: I beg to move, in page 1, line 17, after "may" insert:
after consultation with such associations of local authorities as appear to him to be concerned.

Sir J. Lamb: May I just say a word as a reminder to my right hon. and learned Friend? He mentioned two Members as representing local authorities, but there are many other Members of the sort who have not been mentioned by him and who are equally interested in this matter. I hope that when the occasion arises that he has to decide who are suitable we shall not be left out.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Rhys Davies: I should be glad if the Minister would explain one thing to me. I am very glad that he has inserted the Amendment and I trust that those who spoke on it will be satisfied. I have sat on a large local authority for years and I represent here five small urban district councils. Clause 1 says:
such regulations shall be of no effect until approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.


Am I to understand that when the Regulations are laid on the Table of the House they will be subject to Amendment, or are we only in a position to accept or reject the Regulations? I should like that point to be cleared up.

Mr. Willink: The Regulations will be submitted for affirmative approval by the House and if it becomes apparent that the House does not like the Regulations, then they will have to be reconsidered. But they will not be subject to detailed Amendment.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 2.—(Power of commission to alter areas.)

Mr. Colegate: I beg to move, in page 2, line 6, after "borough," insert:
or a non-county borough in an urban or rural district.
This is a matter on which, I must frankly admit, there is some difference of opinion. I would draw attention to the fact that the Clause as it stands limits the power of the Commission to the inclusion of an urban or rural district in a non-county borough, but gives no power to include a non-county borough in an urban or rural district. Some people may think that that implies absorption of the less by the greater, but that is not necessarily so. There are remarkable instances to the contrary. I would like to give one or two cases which were referred to by the Minister of Health in the Debate on the White Paper on 15th February this year. He mentioned the cases of Leominster, Tiverton and Welshpool. The figures in those three cases are very remarkable. Leominster Borough has a population of 5,700, a rateable value of £33,382 and an area of 8,728 acres. The rural district of Leominster, which surrounds that small and ancient borough, has a population of 10,633, very nearly double, and a rateable value of £44,435 and an area of 94,000 acres. 7.30 p.m.
We must not anticipate the decisions of the Commission, of course, but it might very well be that the Boundary Commission would regard that as a case where, in view of the heavy services placed on local authorities to-day, it might be desirable to amalgamate the two districts to get

a bigger rateable value upon which rates can be levied for housing and the other services which are demanded from local authorities. Surely, in that case, if that is done it ought to be within the power of the Boundary Commission to let a rural district, which is a bigger authority, absorb the smaller authority, rather than the other way round, particularly as a large area in which there are local agricultural interests might be swallowed by a small borough, however ancient it might be, where the interests are of a somewhat different character. I cannot see that there would be any objection to giving this power.
The fears of what are called, in a circular issued by the borough of Richmond, Yorkshire, on this subject "Small towns with ancient charters"—I have in my own constituency the ancient borough of Wenlock, one of the most ancient boroughs in this country, and I am afraid that borough would not support me in the appeal I make to-day—over this Amendment are exaggerated. It does not mean they are to be amalgamated. All these considerations will be taken into consideration by the Boundary Commission, who will certainly not do anything which is inimical to the public interest in that particular area. But, if we are really to trust the Boundary Commission, and we shall have to trust it—it will have a very serious task, the completion of which will make a good deal of difference to certain localities—if we are to limit these powers, why limit them in one direction? It looks as though on that particular point, we suddenly withdraw our confidence from the Boundary Commission. If the Commission is to be given power to say that a small town with an ancient-charter should absorb a rural district, surely it must equally be said that they shall have the power to say that the rural district shall absorb the small town. I think this is an admirable Bill. I like the suggestions of the Boundary Commission. I am so much in favour of them that I am moving this Amendment to give the Boundary Commission full power to consider the matter.

Mr. G. Griffiths: I do not quite understand this Amendment. It says:
or a non-county borough in an urban or rural district.
Is there any non-county borough in the British Isles in an urban district?

Hon. Members: Surrounded by.

Mr. Griffiths: Very well, but the Amendment says "in."

Sir J. Lamb: I support the Amendment. As my hon. Friend says, it is designed to improve the Bill and give greater powers to the Commissioners. The County Councils' Association have considered this Bill, and have passed two resolutions. One was in favour of the Bill, and the other was a reservation. The reservation was:
That the Committee greatly regret the absence of any provision enabling the Boundary Commission to direct that a non-county borough shall become part of an urban or rural district, and that an amendment be sought for this purpose.
It is clear that this Bill is to give power to the Boundary Commission to consider all kinds of districts, with one exception, that is, non-county boroughs. Why leave them out? Let the Commission have full power. The result of the Bill as at present drafted is that non-county boroughs cannot be included in a rural or urban district, if desired, or, to put it the other way round, a rural district council or urban district council can be included in a non-county borough if desired.
Certain figures have been given. Let me add to them briefly. There are 19 non-county boroughs with a population of less than 2,500. There are also 33 non-county boroughs with a population of more than 2,500 and less than 5,000, showing that there are quite a number which ought to come under the consideration of the Boundary Commission. I will give the names of two. Montgomery has a population of 918, and a rateable value of £3,114. A penny rate brings in £13. Cawbridge in Glamorgan has a population of 1,027, and a rateable value of £5,250. There again, I think consideration should be given. I do not intend to make a long speech, or to ask the Committee at this stage to consider any individual non-county borough or rural or urban district. I am asking the Minister to make it possible for the Commission, when it is desirable, in their view, to have this power. I cannot see why they should be deprived of this power, which they have in regard to other authorities.

Mr. T. J. Brooks: Are some of these non-county boroughs mentioned by the hon. Member, charter boroughs?

Sir J. Lamb: Some may and some may not 'be. I have not given numbers in relation to charters.

Mr. G. Hutchinson: My hon. Friend was asked whether these boroughs have Charters. His answer was that some have and some have not.

Sir J. Lamb: They all have Charters, but some have a Royal Charter.

Mr. Brooks: I meant a Royal Charter.

Sir Joseph Nall: I think my hon. Friend, in moving an Amendment of this kind, is splitting hairs. What we are dealing with in this case is the question of whether two areas should be merged, whether it be that an urban or rural area absorbs a borough, or a borough absorbs an urban or rural area. The process is the same; the two are brought into one unit. To suggest that a town, however small, which for many years, in the case of Royal Charter boroughs, has been a borough, and has some paraphernalia of civic dignity, etc., should disappear from the map as a municipal unit and name, and be absorbed in a rural district, is offering an affront to civic pride, which will only embarrass the Boundary Commission when they come to deal with these matters. I should be out of Order in elaborating what I think is the real remedy for this, but I will put it shortly. Where these very small boroughs are surrounded by rural districts, and it is obvious that the two should be merged, we ought to have a new name, and call the merged unit a rural borough. In that way civic pride would not be affronted, civic paraphernalia would be retained, the town would still be a borough and the countryside would not be offended by being called an urban borough or a municipal district. I loathe the name of non-county borough. It is a stupid phrase. It would be better to call these boroughs urban boroughs. So far as this particular Amendment is concerned, I hope it will not be carried. Civic dignity should not be affronted. The real remedy is to call such units rural boroughs.

Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: I have listened with surprise and pain to the speeches of my hon. Friends the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) and the Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb). That such speeches


should be made by members of the Conservative Party is a surprise.

Mr. G. Griffiths: One can expect anything from the Conservative Party.

Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: I rise to urge my right hon. and learned Friend and the Committee to give the shortest possible shrift to this Amendment. When all is said and done, what is its effect? I listened with modified pain to the speech of the hon. Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall). Its effect is to cut clean across local patriotism and historical traditions. I have received communications from two non-county boroughs in my constituency, the borough of Hedon which received its Charter in 1170, and the borough of Beverley, which received its Charter a little later, long before this country was afflicted by the municipal megalomania which has made itself so prominent in the course of these proceedings. I am instructed to resist—[Interruption]—urge, requested, anything that would be suitable to my hon. and gallant Friend, commanded, instructed by the electors of Holderness to resist this Amendment, which is an example of the ham-fisted methods of the planners who are so anxious to take over control of this country, and who desire to ride roughshod over all these ancient and historical traditions.

Mr. Colegate: Why is it more roughshod to incorporate A with B than B with A? Surely that can apply to any decision given by the Boundary Commission?

Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: I would ask my hon. Friend to wait for the concluding sentences of this very brief speech. The difference between B and A and A and B is that between the two sides of this House. It was said a little earlier in the Debate that the present Minister may not always sit in his present place. There might conceivably be a change of Government.

Mr. G. Griffiths: I did not say that. I said there would be a change of Minister. I never said anything about a change of Government.

Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: Nor did I make any reference to the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths). I do not know why he should suddenly jump up—

Mr. Griffiths: I made the statement about the Minister not always occupying his present position.

Lieut-Commander Braithwaite: —unless it is a desire to engage in his usual verbal exercise. I was about to commend to my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin, the broadcast to the nation made last night by the Prime Minister. He made it quite clear that we are in some danger of sliding into a form of totalitarian organisation. If that be so the first victims of such totalitarianism are, of course, the ancient boroughs. Hon. Members opposite are anxious to sweep away our ancient traditions at the earliest available opportunity. I suggest in all good temper to my hon. Friends who have supported this Amendment that the suggestion that Charters granted by the Crown—and all these Charters have been granted by the Crown, whether the boroughs are county boroughs or non-county boroughs—should be superseded by some bureaucratic Commission, is to me a most lamentable doctrine to come from members of the Tory Party.

Mr. Colegate: There is nothing about these ancient boroughs being superseded by the Commission. All that is in question is entirely whether it is more convenient to combine two districts or not.

Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: I am not anxious to take up the time of the Committee, but I must express my surprise at the innocence of my hon. Friend. In present circumstances his or my suspicions are ill-grounded. But let him look into the awful future portrayed last night by the Prime Minister. We have to look at these possibilities. Should hon. Members opposite at some very far distant date succeed in achieving a majority in this House there will be bureaucratic Commissions nominated from Transport House.

The Deputy-Chairman (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): I do not think that is in Order on this Amendment.

Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: But, when we are engaged in placing on the Statute Book an Act which may remain there for many years, I thought I was in Order in pointing out certain possibilities. If that is not in Order, may I appeal to Members to uphold the charters


of non-county boroughs, and urge my hon. Friend not to be led into error by this extremely specious and dangerous Amendment.

7.45 P.m.

Mr. Willink: My intervention will not prevent any other Member from addressing the Committee, but I thought it my duty to make my position clear. It would be the greatest embarrassment to me if the majority of the Committee were to support this Amendment. I gave a clear pledge in introducing this Bill. I said:
Except in the case of the amalgamation of two boroughs, no alteration of area or status will involve the loss by a borough of its charter."—[Official Report, 9th May, 1945: Vol. 410, c. 1951.]
By these new words, my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate), in a speech of great frankness, suggests that a non-county borough may be included in an urban or rural district. That is a very remarkable suggestion. He suggests that this Commission shall have power, by its order alone, without the control of Parliament, as the Bill is drafted, to take away an ancient charter from a Borough, however small, or however large. We have taken the view, and I believe it is the view of the Committee as a whole, that it is not proper in what is, after all, temporary policy to ask Parliament to take such a step as that. When my hon. Friend suggests that the situation is parallel, and that it is just as right to include a rural district or part of a rural district in an ancient borough as to include an ancient borough in a rural district, the argument is more plausible on the surface than in reality. Rural districts are very much more creations of a recent date than are ancient boroughs, with their charters. I could not possibly accept the Amendment.

Mr. Ede: I apologise for intervening in this internecine conflict of the Conservative Party, but I regret the answer given by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. If we take the case that was produced in detail by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate), what happens is this. If the right thing is to be done in the Leominster district, the Leominster non-county borough is to be expanded to cover a very much larger area, with three times the population. It will have ceased to have any of the characteristics of the borough, but will be called a borough, and those parts of the added

area may find themselves called on to discharge duties that will fall on them as a borough that will not fall on them as a rural district. The whole trouble is that we have got to face up to the fact that, since these non-county boroughs originally received their charters, the whole face of the country has been changed. There is the borough of Hedon, in the constituency of the hon. and gallant Member for Holder-ness (Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite). I once met the Mayor of Hedon when I was the guest of the Lord Mayor of Hull. The mayor was very careful to explain to me that his borough was a charter borough long before Kingston-upon-Hull was ever considered, and that, therefore, this lord mayor was a very inferior person in dignity to his Worship the Mayor of Hedon. The local government of this country should be designed to deal with the problems of to-day. Undoubtedly administrative inconvenience follows from the kind of difficulties that we are going to preclude ourselves from considering. I know of one non-county borough which at one time was a police authority. It had a chief constable, a sergeant and five constables. How can you have an efficient police force with that composition? I know another non-county borough which was a Food and Drugs Act authority. It had a population of 903. The local village storekeeper only needed to get on the council, and then he need not take the trouble to mix any sugar with the sand. The time has gone by when we should regard these ancient charters as precluding us from doing the right thing by the people who are living in these boroughs and the adjoining districts.

Sir J. Nall: It does not stop them from merging.

Mr. Ede: It stops them from merging except by expansion of the non-county borough. The difference between the non-county borough, in its statutory position and responsibilities, and the rural districts is very considerable. It will involve the point so well made by the hon. Member for The Wrekin. You can have an enlarged borough of Leominster, with people living far away from the centre, hot enjoying any of the amenities of the centre, having to pay the lighting rate, the sewerage rate, and the other rates that will have to be levied for the new borough, whereas if the borough was absorbed in


the rural district the special expenses for the various parts could be properly charged on the parts getting the benefits. We are told that this is a temporary Measure. We must face up to the fact that, While we may get some temporary measure of reconstruction out of this Bill, we shall not be able to settle the permanent lines of English local government if we are confronted with the restrictions that we are being asked to continue, by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's refusal to accept the Amendment.

Colonel Clarke: As a county councillor, I regret the decision of the Minister. To put it bluntly, if the Bill is passed as it stands there will be a tendency to bolster up weak boroughs by adding land from rural district councils near by. That will be to the prejudice of the people living, in those rural areas. They think differently, and their lives are different from those of people in a small town; and they will be prejudiced. I am not afraid of boroughs losing their charters, though I agree with a great deal of what was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) about there 'being some limit to what you can keep in the way of charters. This Bill may prejudice a rural district council if part of its territory is taken into a borough, in order to bolster up the borough.

Mr. David Eccles: I cannot see that this is such a serious matter as the Committee is making of it. If we are to contemplate the amalgamation of, let us say, Malmesbury—whose charter is over 1,000 years old and was given to it by King Athelstane—with the surrounding district—which, in my opinion, ought to take place—it is obvious that the population of the country areas will swamp the population of the towns. They will get more members on the new and bigger authority. Where will those members meet? In the town of Malmesbury. It is surely much better that the charter should continue, and that various villages in the country area around should from time to time have the honour of supplying the mayor, and the chances are that the benefits would go to both populations, who are now being linked up by motor transport and conveniences of that sort. If we were to support the Amendment, we should be saying that no amalgamation

ought to take place between the small country towns and the country districts which surround them. That would be bad for administration. We need these larger areas and a broader financial basis for some of these local government areas. If we are to have amalgamation, where is the seat of administration to be? Clearly, in one of these towns. In that case, it does not make much difference calling it an expansion of the town, and it is a very good thing to preserve the tradition of the town, and to link up the interests of the surrounding countryside with those of the small borough.

Mr. G. Hutchinson: I hope that the Minister will be persuaded to recede from the attitude that he has adopted towards this Amendment. This is one of those cases where the Committee has to choose between the value of tradition in local government, on the one hand, and the value of what is regarded at the moment, at any rate, as efficiency in local government on the other. I am astonished at my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) moving this Amendment. I have always looked upon him as an upholder of tradition. For some reason, which I am not able to guess, he appears to have been seduced from that very proper and upright approach to public matters which he has displayed.

8.0 p.m.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) said that the difficulty which this situation presents to us is really a difficulty of rating. I agree that that is the real justification for this Amendment. Is there any substance in it? It may very well be that, in the course of their operations, the Boundary Commission would have to unite many districts which are still rural in character with districts that are urban in character. If they have to do that, it will, of course, result in the inhabitants in the rural part of the area being called upon to pay a rate which will include some urban services. One of the things which hon. Members on all sides of the House have supported is that one of the purposes of our local government changes is that urban services should be extended, so far as they can be extended, into the rural areas.

Sir J. Lamb: What urban services can those boroughs give in which a penny-rate is only worth £13?

Mr. Hutchinson: Of course, if you are going to look at the penny rate of the boroughs in their present circumstances, it is obvious that they cannot afford to extend urban services into a great rural district, but I am envisaging extensions of the boroughs and improvement in their rateable value. It will be for the Boundary Commission to determine whether an area, which may be urban in character, although part of a rural district on the boundaries of the borough, ought to be included in an existing borough. If they come to that conclusion in the right way, then they will, no doubt, proceed to make the appropriate Order. Is this difficulty of rating really one which ought to induce the Committee to sweep away these ancient charters? There is one thing which is very valuable in municipal life, and that is the sense of tradition which these little ancient boroughs maintain. I think that is a really valuable thing in rural life, and I think we ought not to sweep it away. We ought to get over what is a temporary difficulty. If it is proved that we ought to combine these ancient boroughs with the adjoining rural districts, surely the right course for us to take is to alter our rating law, and that requires only a very simple alteration in order to make differential rating possible in the boroughs. We ought not to sweep away these ancient charters, 800 and 900 years old, with all the pride and authority which they bring to these small towns, for the sake of what is but a temporary and transitory position, and the Minister would be doing what would prove to be a great injury to local government traditions if he did that. It is true that the future administration of these little boroughs is going to prove a formidable obstacle to the rearrangement of local government, but I hope the Minister will allow them to continue in those traditions which they have so honourably maintained, in spite of what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields has said.

Mr. Ede: I said no word to indicate that anything dishonourable had been done by these boroughs. All I suggested was that we have to live in the present and not in the past, but I made no reflection on the conduct of any of these boroughs.

Mr. Hutchinson: I am very glad to hear that observation, and I am glad to

know that I misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman. He made some observation about sugar.

Mr. Colegate: I must confess disappointment at the attitude of the Minister. The argument, if I may say so, has been wholly on the side of my Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) put a really forcible case. As to these charges, let us be clear about it. I am accused of being an unrepentant Tory, but my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Holderness (Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite) accused me of being innocent. Even the Minister fell into this trap about tradition. Where there are two things and one is older than the other, the older is not necessarily the better. I like tradition, but I like still better the making of tradition. I am reminded of the story of one of Napoleon's field-marshals who was talking to two degenerate Austrian aristocrats, one of whom claimed 51 quarterings on his shield and the other claimed 64. When one said, "What about your ancestors, Field-Marshal?" he replied "Ancestors? I am an ancestor." That is what the rural district councils may well say to the charter boroughs. I know of a borough which was given its charter because the mistress of some king applied for a charter to be given to it. To ignore the traditions of the last 50 years and all the splendid work that the rural district councils have done is utterly to mistake the value of tradition.

Sir J. Lamb: I want to answer a question which was put to me about the non-county boroughs. I was asked whether they all had royal charters. They are all boroughs, because places become boroughs by royal charter, but they are not all royal boroughs. With regard to the charge of sweeping away the royal boroughs, I do not think that either the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) or I have suggested that they should be swept away. All we asked was that the Commission should be given power to give consideration to their cases, and I cannot see that those who have spoken so vigorously—

Mr. G. Hutchinson: What my hon. Friend is asking is that the Commission should not have power to unite these ancient boroughs with a rural district.

Sir J. Lamb: If they think fit. I come now to the point I was going to make before I was interrupted. I cannot think that these people who have been supporting so vigorously the royal boroughs have done anything but a disservice to the royal boroughs in the statements made yesterday. It would lead people to believe that they have put in a claim for special treatment. All I have asked is that what claim they have should be placed before the Commissioners, and that the Commissioners should have the right of dealing with them as they would with any other local authority.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Rostron Duckworth: I beg to move, in page 2, to leave out lines 28 and 29.
The object of the Amendment, which also stands in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) and of other hon. Members, is to increase the powers of the Boundary Commission so as to include the administrative county of Middlesex. The White Paper states that there are 15 non-county boroughs in the County of Middlesex and of these nine have a population of more than 75,000. These non-county boroughs have great amenities, financial resources and residential qualifications of one kind or another second to none in any part of the Kingdom, and they should not be precluded from rising to the status of county boroughs. The fear was expressed in the White Paper that if more county boroughs were created it would react rather seriously on the county administration and considerably weaken it. I feel, however, that these non-county boroughs should have an opportunity of being brought in and advanced to the position of county boroughs. There is no reason why the Boundary Commissioners should not include this county in their investigations of county boroughs and report on the matter. They could then consider the position of the county according to the result of their investigations. I hope that the Amendment will receive due consideration from the Minister and from the Committee.

Mr. Ede: I oppose this Amendment. The effect of leaving out these lines would be to throw the future of the local government of the county of Middlesex into the

melting pot which this Commission has to bring to the boil and then turn out in some new form of local government for a great part of the country. There are two parts which are excluded—the county of London and the county of Middlesex. At the present time Middlesex has a population of over 2,000,000. Its various county districts are so interwoven that only people with the most expert local knowledge know when they are in the area of one borough or urban district or another. I would have preferred to see the whole of the Metropolitan Police District withdrawn from the scope of the Commission, because the Metropolitan part of Essex and the Metropolitan parts of Surrey and of Kent are not very dissimilar in their composition from the county of Middlesex.
There will have to be a Commission, undoubtedly, dealing with the problem of the government of London and its immediate environs, and I suggest that a Commission for that purpose might be differently constituted from another Commission that deals with other parts of the country. It would have to deal with entirely different problems, and it would be a mistake, in my view, to embark upon the problem of reconstructing Middlesex government apart from the problems associated with the reconstruction of London government. It is true that there are some very populous places in Middlesex. The curious thing is that one of the most populous is not a borough at all. The urban district of Harrow, which has a population of 120,000, is one of the districts with which we should be concerned if the Amendment were passed. I hope that the Committee will leave the Bill, in this respect, as it has been drafted and that Middlesex and its very difficult local government problems will be tackled separately.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. S. O. Davies: What I cannot understand is why, seeing that the Commission will have tremendously wide powers, it cannot inquire into the problem of Middlesex. It will be called upon to inquire into most problems where the questions of boundaries, population and rateable values will arise. Perhaps I may be mistaken, but if I were living in one of these populous towns of Middlesex I should want to have far stronger reasons


than have been given why my borough was to be deprived of county borough powers.

Mr. G. Hutchinson: The only matter which the Boundary Commission are precluded from dealing with is the constitution of a county borough. As I understand it, it is in their jurisdiction to inquire into boundaries but they cannot constitute new county boroughs.

Mr. Davies: I am taking exception to it. If one of these populous towns wishes to make representations to the Minister that it should become a county borough, why cannot it be allowed to do so? Why exclude Middlesex? The idea is that these towns in Middlesex shall not have powers granted to them to apply for the position of a county borough. Personally I feel very keenly on this, because, notwithstanding all that has been said about local government in this country, I am satisfied that, subject to conditions, the ideal local government unit up to now has been a county borough. I hesitate to support an exclusion of this kind without having far more information than we have had up to now. I hope that that information will be forthcoming or I shall be compelled to support the Amendment.

Mr. Hamilton Kerr: My hon. Friend who moved the Amendment advanced eloquent contentions in its support, but I hope he will not press them. As the hon. Gentleman opposite rightly stressed, the problems of the County of Middlesex are peculiar to themselves. In fact, it is one of the most densely populated parts of the country and consists of a real county of houses. Were numerous county boroughs to be created within the County of Middlesex, we are very much 'afraid that Middlesex would be destroyed as an administrative unit. My hon. Friend opposite asked why the Commission should not consider, in particular, some of the problems of Middlesex. I would answer this to him. During the first few years of the Commission's operations it is essential, so we feel, that the powers of the Commission in Middlesex should not extend beyond minor adjustments. The problems are so tremendous and peculiar to themselves, and they feel that very strongly.

Mr. S. O. Davies: Will not the Commission be asked to inquire into problems of major dimension and major importance in

other parts of the country? Why, then, exclude the Commission from having the necessary powers at least to observe the problems of Middlesex? I must repeat that I consider that it is absolutely wrong of this Committee to deprive any aggregation of people in any densely populated part of this country of making an application and of putting up all the fight they can for county borough powers. The answer given by the Parliamentary Secretary is far from being satisfactory and, were I a Middlesex man, I would take very strong exception to it.

Mr. Kerr: I am afraid I cannot satisfy the hon. Member any further in his wish. All I can say is that the Commission has a vast task ahead of it. It has many items that are more urgent problems than the consideration of Middlesex and therefore perhaps it would be wise to start on those and go back to that later.

Mr. R. Duckworth: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 3.—(Exercise of powers of Commission.)

Mr. G. Hutchinson: I beg to move, in page 3, line 2, after "situated," insert:
or by the council of the said district being a borough.
The effect of this Amendment is to make it possible for a non-county borough to apply to the Commission for the consideration of a proposal for alteration of their boundaries or for uniting them with other districts or, indeed, for any of the changes which are enumerated in Clause 2. For many years the boroughs have had the right to apply to the Minister of Health in matters of this nature and to ask that their boundaries should be altered or extended or that they should be united with some adjoining or some contiguous district. That is a right to which the boroughs have attached great importance. Under this Bill they will not have the right to make applications of that nature to the Boundary Commission. It is true that representations may be made, and there is some obligation to have those representations taken into consideration, but the boroughs feel strongly that the right which they have enjoyed for so long to have those applications considered by the authority which has power to give effect to them, should not foe taken from them. They


desire very earnestly that they should have the right to apply to the Boundary Commission in respect of these matters in the same way as they have enjoyed the right for so long to apply to the Ministry of Health. In those circumstances I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to hold out to us some prospect that a borough which desires some alteration of boundaries or other matters shall have the right to call upon the Commission to investigate their case.

Mr. R. Morgan: I support the Amendment moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford (Mr. G. Hutchinson). All we ask is that the right which these local authorities and non-county boroughs have had in the past shall not be taken away from them. I do not want to delay the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary, but I want to be able to go back to my own Division and say to these corporate boroughs that they will have the right of appearing before the Commissioners and putting their objections to any proposals brought before them. As the Bill is drawn it seems that these rights are to be taken away, and that the only opportunity they can have of any hearing at all is by an approach to the county council or the Ministry. I think it would be very wrong if these boroughs were deprived of their old inalienable rights.

Mr. T. J. Brooks: I support the Amendment. It is very hard for these non-county boroughs, of which there is one in my Division, to have these powers taken away from them. In the past they have always had the right to make application, but not through the county council. Now they have to go cap in hand to the county council and say, "Will you put up a case for us to the Ministry of Health so that we can try to bring about an inquiry?" It does not affect at all the question of local government service, it does not give a better service, it is a question of not taking away from the non-county boroughs the powers they have to-day. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give way on this matter and allow them to make application, not through the county council but in their own right.

Mr. Kerr: I hope the Committee will grant me their indulgence if I stick rather

closely to my brief; it is a somewhat complicated and technical point for a beginner.

Mr. S. O. Davies: I hope the answer will be satisfactory.

Mr. Kerr: The general principle enunciated in the Bill is that any local authority can approach the Commission with its own proposals but the Commission is not, except in the case of a borough with a population of 100,000, seeking county borough status, bound to take these proposals into consideration where they emanate from a local authority below the status of a county borough, unless either the county council requests them to do so or the Minister requires them to do so. If I may make this point, to draw a distinction between the existing law and the system proposed in the Bill, at present the Minister has no power, still less a duty, to make any alteration of boundaries of a county or borough except on the application of the county or borough council. Hence, unless there is provision in the existing law for a borough council to move the Minister to take action, nothing could be done except at the instance of a county council; and it is familiar that county councils are not over anxious to secure borough extensions. However, under Clause 1 of the Bill the Commission have not only a power but a duty to review the circumstances of the local government areas throughout the country.
They are not in any way dependent on the initiative coming either from the local government body or the Minister. In considering, therefore, whether there is a prima facie case for investigating an area they would, of course, bear in mind any representations made on the subject by a borough or any other council. In order to make this abundantly clear an Amendment will be moved by my right hon. and learned Friend to the effect that the Commission must have regard to representations made by a borough or other county district council.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. R. Morgan: Hitherto local authorities have had the right of appeal direct to Parliament. Will they have that right when this Bill is passed?

Mr. Kerr: I am instructed that that is not a point which comes within the terms of this Amendment.

Mr. Bernard Taylor: Is the Parliamentary Secretary saying that under this provision a non-county borough would be prevented from presenting a Bill to Parliament, seeking authority to become a county borough?

Mr. Willink: Did the hon. Member say that he understood that under these provisions a non-county borough could not present a Bill?

Mr. Taylor: Yes.

Mr. Willink: So far as I know anyone can present a Bill, but when Parliament sets up a Commission of this kind it might well be that it would not allow the Bill to go forward, but would send it to the Commission.

Mr. Taylor: Would it not prevent a petition being made to Parliament by a non-county borough to consider its claim to become a county borough?

Mr. Willink: There is no constitutional prevention, but I think Parliament would take the view that, having set up this Commission, they would be the proper people to consider it.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Gilbert Acland-Troyte: I think the Amendment is sound, and that it is a pity to take away from non-county boroughs a right which they had before. I am a little puzzled by the Parliamentary Secretary's remarks about the Amendment which is to be moved by my right hon. and learned Friend. I am not quite sure how far it goes to meet my views, but I understand that boroughs would be able to put forward their case without difficulty.

Mr. Morgan: May I have a reply to the point I put a few moments ago? Does the Minister mean that if the areas of non-county boroughs are to be affected and altered by the Boundary Commission they have no right of appeal to Parliament?

Mr. Willink: May I put it in this way? Under the old law there was a difference between the first county review and subsequent reviews. Under the first county review the Minister had power to make an Order, and it did not come before Parliament. This is, again, in the nature of the first county review in a period of reconstruction, and there is no difference, on this issue, between non-county boroughs and urban districts. There

would be, of course, a full local inquiry where there was any question of alteration of boundaries, but alteration of the boundaries within a county is not a matter which, under the Bill, is subject to the control of Parliament.

Mr. Ede: I think we have got rather a long way from the point submitted to the Committee by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson) who desires to give non-county boroughs some power of initiation of proceedings in order to secure an alteration of their boundaries. That is not provided for in the Bill. The only people who can make application for the review of the boundaries of the non-county borough are the county council concerned. I think the hon. and learned Member would agree that that was his point.

Mr. Hutchinson: indicated assent.

Mr. Ede: I regret that I was not able to follow exactly the answer which the Parliamentary Secretary gave on that simple point. He suggested that the Minister would, later, move an Amendment which will compel a number of people to have regard to the wishes of the non-county borough when its proceedings are initiated. The point put to the Committee in this Amendment is whether the non-county boroughs shall have the right of initiative in these matters, which is not given, and which the hon. and learned Member for Ilford does not ask to be given, to urban districts and rural districts.

Mr. Hutchinson: The right hon. Gentleman appreciates that rural and urban districts have never had this right.

Mr. Ede: That is a very Conservative argument. Because you have never had it you never ought to have it. I can well understand the hon. and learned Member making the most strenuous efforts to make that point. Is it the intention of the Minister to restore in some form or other the initiative which the non-county boroughs have hitherto had?

Mr. Willink: I regret to say that I did not hear the argument advanced by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson), as expressed by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but I will try to deal with that point. One cannot make this direct comparison between the present proposals and the old


position, because in the old days and, indeed, until this Bill is law, the Minister has no power to make any alteration in the boundaries of either a county or borough except on the application of a county or borough. This Bill gives that power, first, to the Boundary Commission. It has, in a Clause already passed, the most complete power, in terms of a most comprehensive character, to consider all these matters. The Minister also has power to direct the Commission to take any matter of this kind into account. And the county council has power to request it. That may not be so much use to the non-county borough, but the Minister and the Commission will both look at this sort of point from an impartial and objective point of view.
What is to be gained by putting upon the Commission, which already has both the power and the duty to review the area, an obligation to take this matter into consideration? As I see it, it is certain that if representations are made to the Commission—and there is no deprivation of the ordinary right which the non-county borough has, in common with the urban or rural district council, to put its case to the Minister, as the result of which he may make a direction—the Commission will say, if it is a good case, "Here is something which we should take into consideration." We do not believe that it is right, in undertaking this very substantial task, which we desire to do with reasonable speed—and I have given an estimate of accomplishing it within four years after the war—to add to the number of things which this Commission has to do, if it is asked to do them, with the result that surrounding parties have to join in the argument.
There are 309 non-county boroughs, and under this proposal every one of those 309 non-county boroughs, even if the county council disagree, even if the Minister disagrees and if the Commission does not think there is anything in it, could force the Commission to hold a formal hearing and take its claim into consideration. I do not believe that is the right thing to do in the period of reconstruction. This is a procedure for a general review of our local government boundaries, and we must not cumber it by too great elaboration and by giving every one these opportunities. This assurance I have given before, and I give

it again—no authority will have its area or boundaries tampered with without a proper inquiry under the aegis of the Commission.

Mr. Hutchinson: I have listened with care to what the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary have said. The Parliamentary Secretary said that he will move an Amendment which will have the effect of requiring the Commission in certain circumstances to take into account representations that are made to them. I moved that the boroughs should have the right to make applications. We desire to get this Bill. The difference between us is not very great. In those circumstances, although I regret my right hon. Friend was not able to accept my Amendment, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Willink: I beg to move, in page 3, line 5, at the end, insert:
(3) The Commission in considering whether it is desirable to take into consideration the question whether any alterations ought to be made under the last foregoing Section in respect of any area of local government, and the Minister or the council of a county in considering whether to give a direction or to make an application under Sub-section (1) or Sub-section (2) of this Section, shall have regard to any representations made by the council of a county district included in the area in question.
The purpose of this Amendment is to reassure the smaller local authorities—and the fact that that reassurance is necessary has been shown by the Debate, I think—who are afraid that they might not be able to overcome the obstacles placed in their way by the county councils. Subsections (1) and (2) of this Clause give the Minister and the county council certain powers, and I think it may be desirable—and I propose that the provision should be inserted—that the Commission, when considering any question on their own initiative, and also the Minister and the county council shall be bound to have regard to any representations from a county district. This Amendment deals with that.

Mr. Colegate: I wish only to say, on behalf of the Urban District Councils' Association and others, how very grateful they are to the Minister for having moved this Amendment, to which they attach some importance.

Amendment agreed to.

The Chairman: In calling the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson), I should warn him, in case he wishes to speak on the following Amendment to which his name is down, that I think his remarks would cover the five Amendments in his name on this subject.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Hutchinson: I beg to move, in page 3, line 7, leave out from "borough," to "as," in line 8, and insert:
or by the councils of any two or more contiguous county districts having a combined population of seventy-five thousand.
These rive Amendments cover two distinct points. The first point is raised by the Amendment which I have just moved, and the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) and myself in line 8. The other point is raised by the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend and myself in line 7.

The Chairman: I should explain that although the hon. and learned Gentleman has instanced the two points, if he wishes to discuss them together, the discussion should come now on the one Amendment

Mr. Hutchinson: I will endeavour to keep the two points separate so that the Committee will be able to appreciate them without confusion. The Amendment which I have moved deals with the question whether, where there are two contiguous authorities which possess a combined population exceeding the minimum limit of population for a county borough, those two contiguous authorities should be entitled to apply to the Commission to be constituted a county borough. There are many cases in different parts of the country where there exist two or more contiguous non-county boroughs, or perhaps a non-county borough and a contiguous urban district, or there may be cases where there exist two contiguous urban districts which possess, if the two districts were united with one another, a population which would justify those two districts in being constituted a county borough.
A few moments ago an hon. Member opposite stated that, in his estimation, the county borough is the most efficient unit of local government. That is a view which is very widely held. It is a view to which I would be prepared to subscribe. I submit that where there are contiguous

populations which are capable of being administered as a county borough in a single unit of administration, it is desirable, and in the interests of efficient local government, that the local authorities who are concerned in that particular district should be entitled to go to the Commission and say that the districts ought to be united and ought to be administered as a county borough. As I understand it, there is no power at present for local authorities which are so situated to make an application of that nature to the Commissioners and require them to take it into consideration.
I am sure that, if the Minister is able to see his way to give effect to the Amendment, it would promote the efficiency of local government in very many parts of the country where this situation arises. On the River Medway there are a number of boroughs contiguous to one another, each possessing a population of comparatively small dimensions, which united together would form a more efficient unit of local government. It would be an improvement in the Bill if it was open to those local authorities to go to the Commission and say, "Here we have the minimum population which is necessary for an efficient county borough. We are prepared to surrender our independence in the interest of the efficient administration of our district. Please constitute us a county borough." It may be that my right hon. and learned Friend can assure us that the Commissioners possess the power to unite existing local government areas and form them into a new county borough. But local authorities who are concerned should be able to go to the Commissioners and put such a proposal before them. It would be a weakness in the Bill if we left the initiative to the Commissioners. It is a good thing that we should place on the authorities concerned some responsibility to formulate proposals of this nature and present them to the Commissioners.
There is, as I have said, another matter raised by these Amendments. That is the minimum population required for the constitution of new county boroughs. As the law stands, a borough is precluded from making application to Parliament to be constituted a county borough unless it possesses a minimum population of 75,000. Under the terms of this Bill the figure of 75,000 will be increased to


100,000. My point is whether that alteration of the law should be made or whether the minimum should remain at 75,000. I would not dissent from the view, which I think has prompted my right hon. and learned Friend to propose this Amendment of the existing law, that the sort of limit of population which is likely to make an efficient county borough is 100,000. But one of the great merits, as I see it, of our system of local government is that there is a certain degree of flexibility in the forms which our administration takes and, as one surveys the position of districts in different parts of the country, one of the matters which impresses one is that there are certain places whose populations are less than 100,000 which would make efficient county boroughs. There may be other places whose population exceeds 100,000 which would not function satisfactorily as a county borough. It is a defect in the Bill that we should tie ourselves down to the figure of 100,000.
I think it would be a good thing that the Commissioners should be given a wider range of discretion in determining which areas will be most efficiently administered under county borough government. We are not saying in this Bill that every town which has a population exceeding 75,000 shall be constituted a county borough. We are not going to say that every town exceeding 100,000, shall be made a county borough. I wish I could persuade the Minister to put that into the Bill. It would save me and those whom I represent in this House a great deal of trouble and unnecessary expense. All we are saying is that, if a particular town possesses a population exceeding that limit, the Commissioners shall have power, if they think fit, to make it a county borough. I am going to ask my right hon. and learned Friend to extend the range of discretion which the Commissioners must exercise and not fetter them down too closely to some particular figure.

Mr. Ede: I think the hon. and learned Gentleman has quite clearly put before the Committee the two points that his Amendment raises. The first is the question whether two districts having a joint qualifying population should be able to make an application to be considered for county borough status. The second is what that qualifying population shall be.

I support him on the first point but oppose him on the second. I think it is desirable that, if the three Medway towns which he gave as an example desire to have county borough status—that is a case where the three together would be over 100,000, so the question of the qualifying population does not arise—they should be in a position to present an application. I think that that is desirable.

9.0 p.m.

I do not share my hon. and learned Friend's view that the minimum population should be reduced from 100,000 to 75,000. The Act of 1888, which established county boroughs, proceeded on the basis of 50,000, and then, threw in Canter bury because that was the place in which Christianity was established in this country. We have, therefore, the anomaly of the county borough of Canterbury with a population of 25,000. I recollect that during the discussions on the Education Act I had to address a meeting in Jarrow, which has a population far above 25,000—

The Chairman: This reminiscence is very interesting, but it is hardly relevant to the Bill.

Mr. Ede: I was only going to say that they pointed out the dangers in which we get by departing from the standard that has been laid down. If Canterbury, why not Jarrow? The figure of 100,000 has some reasonable comparison with the total population of the country now, as the figure of 50,000 had in 1888. I suggest, therefore, that while the Minister should stick to his figure, he might very well give way on the question whether two or more county districts desiring to have county borough powers should not be able to apply for them. The Bill limits the applications to boroughs. For once my hon. and learned Friend is generous to urban districts, inasmuch as he would allow two or more urban districts or a borough and a county district to make the application. On that point I think that his wording is to be preferred to that in the Bill.

Sir J. Nall: I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will not accede to the plausible pleading of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford (Mr. G. Hutchinson). If there is one weak spot in local government to-day, it is the fact that there are too many county boroughs which make no contribution to the ex-


penses of the surrounding county, which they are only too anxious to exploit if they want a few extra square yards of area. The Bill enables two boroughs to be amalgamated, but I understand that it does not allow them to cease to be part of the county in which they are situated. We should not allow this Commission to go roving over England. It is a semi-irresponsible body, an ad hoc Commission of a totalitarian nature such as that of which we heard last night. I have no use for it, and I have no use for this Bill and am sorry that it has been introduced. To allow an ad hoc Commission of this kind, which may or may not be composed of competent persons, and which may or may not have some bias, to go roving tip and down England merging boroughs into county boroughs, will spoil the whole set-up of county government and will be the reverse of what we choose to call democracy.
The Bill goes far enough without these Amendments. It enables amalgamations to be made where they can be shown to be in the local interest. Anything which goes still further to knock the bottom out of county government or to add to the aggrandisement of the present county boroughs, will be very wrong at this juncture. I would much rather, although we cannot deal with it in this Bill, see county borough status afforded to county councils. The weak spot in county government, and one of the reasons why some non-county boroughs and urban districts in certain parts of the country do not progress in housing, sanitation and so on as they should do, is that nobody has really the authority to do the job.

The Chairman: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but this is getting beyond quite a narrow Amendment.

Sir J. Nall: I am sorry, and I will not pursue it. I hope my right hon. Friend will not at this stage allow this Bill to be used for the creation of more county boroughs.

Colonel Viscount Suirdale: I will not follow the hon. Gentleman in his speculation concerning county boroughs and county councils, but I would like to support the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. G. Hutchinson), mainly on the grounds that I feel there is in this Bill a certain lack of flexibility and a rigidity which may in some cases have unfortunate consequences

in the future In my own division we have a curious situation of which the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) is well aware. The city of Peterborough, which is a non-county borough, has a population of over 50,000 and is situated in a small county called the Soke of Peterborough. The city of Peterborough provides something like 85 per cent. of the population of the county. Around it are other urban areas, so that if all the population were taken together there would toe an urban population of something of the order of 75,000 people. This is rather a special position, and it was recognised by my right hon. Friend in the Education Bill. I think it was in Section 2 of the First Schedule that special machinery was brought in to deal specifically with the situation in Peterborough and Cambridge.
The local government problem in the Peterborough area is greatly aggravated by the fact that Peterborough is very close to the boundaries of three other counties, and it will present a first-class headache to this Boundary Commission when it comes to sorting out this rather curious position. I do not propose to argue the case now, but there are those who take the view that a possible solution would be for Peterborough and the contiguous areas to be made a county borough. The merits of that could be considered by the Boundary Commission, but, as I understand the Bill as it is now, that consideration is absolutely barred because Peterborough and the surrounding districts have not got a population of over 100,000 people. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister either to accept the appropriate Amendment so as to make this possible, or to give us some assurance that the rigidity with which we are faced at the moment will be removed.

Mr. Willink: I am a little puzzled by the drafting of this Amendment, although I do not wish to make a serious point about it. If I have followed this Amendment correctly, if it were accepted, the Subsection would run as follows:
If application in that behalf is made to the Commission by the council of any borough or by the councils of any two or more contiguous county districts having a combined population of seventy-five thousand, the Commission shall take into consideration the question whether or not the power conferred by the last foregoing Section, of constituting the borough a county borough ought to be exercised.


That, as it runs, is strange, because the little boroughs of 800 or 900 of which we have been hearing only a short time ago would by my hon. and learned Friend's Amendment be given the power to force the Commission to inquire whether they should not be county boroughs. The other peculiarity about the Amendment as it is drafted is this: If half a dozen urban districts get together and say, "We think autonomy and safety from the county council is the life to lead. We together amount to 75,000 people. We may be combining five or six districts, but altogether we amount to 75,000. The county council does not approve it, but the Minister approves it. The Commission shows no sign of taking any interest in us whatever. We have a right to force an inquiry as to whether we should not be constituted a county borough." Those are two strange proposals, I venture to suggest, under both headings.
Perhaps I might deal with them more seriously. The drafting has consequences which I cannot think my hon. and learned Friend had in mind. I think he intends the 75,000 limit to apply to a single borough, or county district, with some reasonable limitation of what county districts they might be. There is some misapprehension here. In the first place, the Commission are not fettered in the way that my Noble Friend thought they were. The Commission have complete power at present, until this House has approved any Regulations that may be made. Under Sub-section (1, d) they have power:
to constitute a borough (either by itself or together with the whole or any part of another county district) a county borough;
That deals with the point which my Noble Friend made. The question we are discussing here is under what circumstances the Commission can be forced to have a full scale inquiry into the circumstances in which some ambitious—and it may possibly be properly ambitious—borough can get this new status. That is how it stands in the Bill. It may be different after general Regulations are submitted. The powers of the Commission still remain quite flexible and it will be open to the House to consider the Regulations that are submitted.
Certainly, I must oppose the Amendment. I could not possibly accept something which gives any borough of what-

ever size the right to compel an inquiry as to whether it should be made a county borough. Nor do I think it would be right to say—on this point the Commission has complete power to work with flexibility—apart from the question of whether amalgamation is desirable in that kind of case, that the councils of two or more contiguous county boroughs having a combined population of 75,000, or any other figure, should have the right to go to the Commission and say, "You must assume amalgamation and you must consider whether we should be a county borough." There might be five groups of minor authorities so intent upon their independence that their amalgamation would not be desirable at all.
My third objection to the whole of the Amendment is on these lines: Twice, with complete frankness, and making the position perfectly clear, I said in this House that the Government considered that the proper limit for a county borough was 100,000. The functions falling on a county borough in the sphere of education and many other things have grown since the old days. The figure was not challenged in a single one of, I think, 30 speeches which were made during the White Paper Debate and the Second Reading of the Bill. To come back in Committee to the figure of 75,000, which the House as a whole—the House took an interest in the White Paper and in the Second Reading—did not criticise through the mind of any one hon. Member, is something I could not possibly do. For those reasons I cannot accept the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Hutchinson: I beg to move, in page 3, line 23, leave out "or (6)."
The Bill provides that if the Commission make a negative Order under Subsection (6) of this Clause, that is to say if the Commission make an Order that no alteration ought to be made in the boundaries of the local authority, the matter shall not be opened for reconsideration for a period of ten years. The Amendment seeks to omit that provision and to make it possible, hi a case in which the Commissioners have made a negative Order, upon an application for the matter to be gone into again within a shorter period than ten years. Under the Local Government Act, 1929, the Committee


will recall the county councils were given the duty of reviewing their county districts from time to time. The county councils were precluded under that Act from reviewing their county districts more frequently than once in ten years. I think it was found under that Act that where the county council had decided that no change should be made in a particular district it was on the whole undesirable that they should be precluded from reviewing it for so long a period as ten years. Circumstances in particular districts may change very rapidly, although it is quite true, and I do not dissent from the proposition embodied in this Bill, that if an Order is made changing he status of boundaries of a particular district they ought not to be changed again for a reasonable period. I would submit to the Committee that the same considerations do not: apply where an Order making no change is made. Frequent changes are undesirable, but this Amendment would not bring that about. It would merely have the effect of making it possible, if circumstances changed within a period of ten years, for the Commission to act in the light of the altered conditions.

Mr. Ede: I hope the Minister will not accept this Amendment. One of the difficulties of carrying on local government has been the way in which a particular district may be perpetually assaulted by a large neighbour who comes forward time after time with applications for an extension of boundaries, and who, when they are rejected, again submits the same kind of proposition within a couple of years. It is essential, if local government is to be conducted reasonably, that people should know that these assaults can be delivered only at reasonably distant intervals. There should be an opportunity to recover financially from the blow that such an assault inflicts on a small authority. They are compelled to brief counsel and to appear before these inquiries, and it is necessary that they should be protected. They also have the right to know that once a decision has been given they can get on for a reasonable time with the administration of the area that has been decided, regarding that area as a unit that will not be lightly disturbed. I think that that is a conclusive argument against even the negative order being capable of review.

Sir J. Nall: May I point out, too, that these orders are not final? Therefore, it is quite a reasonable proposition that they should be allowed to stand.

Mr. Willink: I was very glad to hear what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) said, and I gather that my hon. Friend the Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall) agrees with him—although I must point out that this applies both to the orders which are not subject to Parliamentary control and to those which are. The principle stated in the White Paper—and I have always regarded it as an important aspect of our proposals—is that the element of stability in local government should be increased.; and there is just as much reason why that stability should follow an unsuccessful assault as a successful assault. The Amendment would allow an active petitioner to petition every year. If there has been a substantial change in the distribution of population or in any other circumstances, the Commission can be urged to take the view that it is proper to allow the petitioner to appeal again. But, apart from that, I think that both the negative and the positive orders should be allowed to stand.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. R. Duckworth: I beg to move, in page 3, line 36, at end, insert:
(9) The Commission shall give notice to the council of every borough to which an order under this Section relates and if within four weeks thereafter objection to the order is made by any such council and is not withdrawn the order shall be provisional only and shall be of no effect until confirmed by Parliament.
This Amendment is intended to preserve the right of a non-county authority to appeal, under the Act of 1933, to Parliament if they object to any order which has been made by the Boundary Commission. The position is that town councils have the right to review all their county districts, and, if they so desire, to apply for an order for the alteration of boundaries, so that they may present a petition to the Minister of Health. The Minister, having received and duly considered it, may, after holding a local inquiry, make an order. If that order is unsatisfactory, it can be objected to.
Under Section 146 of the Local Government Act, 1933, and the Order must be provisional only and could not be confirmed until taken to Parliament. Under


this Bill, the Boundary Commission will take the place of the county council in considering the boundaries of these non-county districts, and the non-county boroughs wish to retain their rights of appeal to Parliament on the decision of the Boundary Commission in the same way that they may do so now to an Order by the Minister. It is this right to come to Parliament which the non-county boroughs value very highly, and I sincerely trust that they may be permitted to continue to have this right.

Mr. Willink: I think, perhaps, the hon. Member for Moss Side (Mr. Duckworth) may hardly realise the difficulty which may be caused by acceptance of this Amendment. Indeed, I do not think that those who support the Amendment, or who may support it, can have realised that there is, really, in the first place, no sort of call for the Commission to give notice to the council of the borough to which an Order relates, and this period of four weeks is something which is quite anomalous in the Bill. Nothing of the kind appears anywhere else. But the real point of the Amendment is that, by it, it is sought to give the non-county boroughs which have some alteration made to their areas—maybe, the small addition of part of a district or a small reduction—the right to come here. The matter was specifically Debated when the, White Paper was before the House, and I do not think it was seriously challenged in the Debate that, in this review after the war, in which we hope to deal with many important local government matters, we cannot encumber this House or give the opportunity to 309 non-county boroughs to bring every point with regard to their boundaries here. There is nothing modern about what we are proposing. This is what was done in the first county review, and I cannot, at this stage, accept so fundamental a change in our proposals.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Willink: I beg to move, in line 25, at end, add:
() In Section one hundred and thirty-nine of the Local Government Act, 1933 (under which the power to promote a Bill for the purpose of constituting a borough a county-borough is limited to boroughs with a population of seventy-five thousand or upwards), for the words 'is seventy-five thousand' there shall be substituted the words 'as estimated by the Registrar-General is one hundred thousand.' 

This really follows logically from the provisions of Clause 3, Sub-section (3), in which there is a limit on the right of boroughs to demand that the Commission shall look into the question whether they shall become county boroughs, the limitation being that it is only boroughs with populations of 100,000 or upwards who can demand such an inquiry. The Local Government Act, 1933, in the Section referred to in my Amendment—a short Section which I can read—has these words:
The council of a borough shall not promote a Bill for the purpose of constituting that borough a county borough unless the population of the borough is 75,000 or upwards.
Now, of course, we do not propose—it might well be thought unseemly—to say that a Bill should not be promoted for this purpose, because Parliament may properly object to anything so sweeping as that; but I should think that, if the limit is there for applications to the Commission, there ought to be a similar limit to (the promotion of Bills, and that is the sole purpose of this Amendment, with this one addition—if the phraseology stood as it is under Section 139, that is, "unless the population of the borough is 75,000 or upwards," that, by the rules of interpretation, refers back to the last census, and it has been found more satisfactory in several connections to have a new phraseology—"as estimated by the Registrar-General." The Registrar-General can give a more accurate picture of the present population than can be given by a census, which as we know, may be many years old, or, at any rate, may, even in peace-time, be some years old.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. G. Hutchinson: I am bound to say that I think my right hon. and learned Friend is unduly restricting the size by limiting the power to make new county boroughs to a minimum population of 100,000. It will make possible a very small number of these county boroughs. There are only 12 non-county boroughs with a population exceeding 100,000, and of these, seven are in the county of Middlesex and will be precluded altogether from applying for county borough status. As matters stand at present the prospect is that the number of new county boroughs will be restricted to five. I have


no doubt that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hulme (Sir J. Nall) would say that that is a good thing.

Sir J. Nall: Far too many.

Mr. Hutchinson: Nevertheless, I would still submit to the Committee that experience has shown that local administration reaches its highest efficiency in an all-purpose authority. There are many authorities with a population falling short of 100,000 which would constitute efficient county boroughs and would be able to administer efficiently all the services of local government. I have no hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will be prepared to modify his Amendment in the fight of the considerations I am endeavouring to advance. All I desire to say is that, while I recognise that he is doing a great service towards the improvement of our local government by this Bill, I had hoped that it could be improved to something much greater if he could have given the Commissioners a wider discrimination in this matter.

Mr. Ede: On behalf of my hon. Friends and myself I would say that we support the Minister's Amendment.

Viscount Suirdale: I rise only to draw attention to what my right hon. and learned Friend has just said that only five non-county boroughs in England can ever hope to achieve county borough status. If I understood the Minister correctly at an earlier stage, that is not the case, as I understood that any non-county borough was eligible to have their claims for county borough status considered provided they could persuade either the Minister or the Commission that their claims were worthy of consideration. Perhaps my right hon. and learned Friend will clear up that point.

Mr. Willink: I am grateful to my Noble Friend for giving me an opportunity of correcting the misunderstanding. I am not going to give any indication whether it would be my own personal view that there should be more or fewer county boroughs, but my hon. and learned Friend was, I think, incorrect in suggesting to the Committee that the only legally possible way of creating new county boroughs lay in examining the existing county boroughs and seeing how many have populations of 100,000.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 4 to 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause.,—(Saving for municipal corporations.)

Save as in this Act provided nothing in this Act shall prejudicially alter or affect the rights, privileges and immunities of any municipal corporation or the operation of any municipal charter.—[Mr. G. Hutchinson.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. G. Hutchinson: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
Much has been said in the course of to-night's discussion upon the subject of the charters of the older municipal corporations, and, indeed, of those municipal corporations which are not so old. Those charters are granted by the Crown, and the authorities who receive them attach great importance to the grant of a charter. It would, I think, be a pity, if we were to do anything in this Bill which would prejudice or affect the respect which these authorities have for the powers and privileges which are conferred upon them by their charters. I am sure that is a point of view shared by my right hon. and learned Friend, and I hope very much that he will find it possible to accept the new Clause.

Sir Ralph Glyn: I hope the Minister will implement what he has said on previous occasions about helping to maintain the charters of these boroughs. I would like to ask one question on a point about which I am not quite clear. In the case of the Boundary Commission deciding that contiguous parishes, forming either a county district or even an urban district, are to be either amalgamated or joined up with a non-county charter borough, whilst this new Clause gives to the existing borough all its own rights and privileges, can it extend those privileges to the new area? I think the Minister said on a previous occasion that the mayor of a borough incorporated in a new area could possibly move about with his mace but it would mean nothing. I do not think it ought to be quite so empty of privilege as that, and if the Minister could give some slight assurance that the old traditions of an ancient charter borough can be brought into the new area as denned by the Boundary Commission,


I think it would be all to the benefit of the new area, because it would inherit those traditions and it would feel it was part and parcel of something which had played a great part in history. I know it is wrong to mention anything about one's constituency but one of the charter boroughs there sent two Members to this House for a great many years, and I think that has been done away with as a rotten borough. It is anything but a rotten borough now; it is a very go-ahead borough, and I would like to see its privileges and history extended into the new area for the benefit of all.

Colonel Sir George Courthope: In support of this new Clause I would like to know whether it will include the very unusual rights and privileges of places like Rye and Winchelsea, which have all sorts of ancient rights arising from ships that fought the Armada and things of that kind, which, I think, everyone will agree should be preserved. I am not quite clear whether the words "municipal borough" would cover such ancient towns.

Mr. Willink: I can certainly give the assurance for which my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) asked—that the borough will still be the same borough, and that its privileges will be extended with it when it is extended. I can also say, "Yes," to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rye (Sir G. Court hope). There may, of course, be some special privileges—which can come within the phrase "rights, privileges and immunities"—of a municipal corporation, and which certainly will not be invaded by this Bill but will, by this Clause, be preserved. I am happy to accept this Clause in its modified form. The fact that I suggested a slight modification was not due to any hostility; it was merely that there were provisions, such as increasing the population, which went beyond the question of boundaries, which was all that was referred to in the previous drafting.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. Ede: I am glad that the Minister has been able to accept this Clause. I take it that what he said with regard to the position of a borough was that, from the time the extension comes info effect the burgesses are equally the burgesses of the extended borough and that the rights,

privileges and immunities that the ancient corporation enjoyed will be enjoyed by the new corporation except, perhaps, for some charities that may refer to a specific area of the ancient borough.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered; read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — CHURCH OF ENGLAND (NATIONAL ASSEMBLY) (MEASURES)

9.45 P.m.

Major Mills(New Forest and Christchurch): I beg to move,
That the Episcopal Pensions Measure, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to His Majesty for His Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.
This Measure is completely non-controversial, so that I can present it to the House briefly. It has been approved by the Ecclesiastical Committee of the two Houses, and by the Church Assembly. It establishes a scheme of pensions for suffragan bishops on the same lines as that for diocesan bishops set up by the Episcopal Pensions Measure, 1926. The scheme is contributory. Each suffragan bishop will pay in £50 a year, and that will entitle him to a pension on resignation at or above the age of 70, or under the age of 70 for disability, of £500 a year. At present he is only getting under the ordinary pensions scheme £200 a year. Opportunity was also taken when the Measure was before the Church Assembly slightly to alter the Episcopal Pensions Measure, 1926. The diocesan bishop's contribution will be slightly increased and stabilised at £80 a year, the two archbishops will each pay £150 a year, and the Bishops of London and Durham £100 a year. Another Amendment made to the earlier Measure is that a bishop, either diocesan or suffragan will be able to make some provision for his widow if he surrenders during his lifetime part of his own pension. This provision for retiring suffragan bishops has been in the air since 1931, it has been actively


before the Church Assembly since 1942, and I hope that in 1945 it will become a fact.

Colonel Sir George Courthope: I beg to second the Motion.

Question put, and agreed to.

9.48 p.m.

Major Mills: I beg to move,
That the Incumbents (Disability) Measure, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to His Majesty for His Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.
This Measure needs a little explanation, although the Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee is completely in favour of it, and indeed says that this subject has had much consideration from 1926 onwards and has received such general support that it can be said to be non-controversial. Again, the Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee says that the Measure, which is the result of many Amendments which have been proposed at various stages and very fully considered, does not endanger the rights of His Majesty's subjects. The object of the Measure is to deal with incumbents who, by bodily or mental infirmity, are disabled, wholly or partially, from carrying out their duties in their parishes. If they are only partially disabled, assistance can be given to them, and if they are wholly disabled, they may be retired on pension.
This is how the Measure works. In each diocese a committee of clergy will be set up and will be elected in a most democratic way by the clergy of that diocese from among their number. Should such a case of disability as I have outlined occur, and the bishop thinks it proper, he may require the committee to consider it and report to him whether the incumbent is really disabled and, if so, whether it is a case in which assistance should be given, or whether he should be asked to resign, an additional pension being given. The incumbent whose disability is under consideration will have every opportunity to put his case forward. He will be asked to confer with the committee and will be able to present such medical testimony as he wants, and he can have a friend or adviser to speak for him. If it is reported to the bishop that

it is desirable that he should resign, five out of the six members of the committee must give their consent in writing, while for assistance there must be at least four votes out of six. The bishop will consider the report and can, if he likes, exercise the powers set out in Clauses 5 and 6. If the disability is only partial, and assistance is called for, it may be given in various ways. A curate can be appointed or if a rest is needed, he can be given leave of absence for a couple of years. If he is fully disabled and resignation is recommended, there is power under Clause 6 for the bishop to declare the benefice vacant, and the incumbent will then retire on a pension.
The pension will be fixed in this way. He will get the ordinary pension that he would get if he retired voluntarily at 70, and such additional pension as has been agreed between the Ministerial Committee and the Diocesan Board of Finance. In no case can the pension be less than £200. This is a very well-considered attempt by the clergy to remedy a complaint usually made by the laity, who are greatly affected by the way an incumbent carries out his parochial duties. Up to now there has been no way of helping an elderly incumbent who is failing in mind or body, and there has been no way of removing and providing for him. Now the clergy, with the cordial assent of the House of Laity, have proposed a remedy and I have every confidence in recommending this Measure to the House as being just and fair.

Sir G. Courthope: I beg to second the Motion.

9.55 p.m.

Mr. Driberg: I hesitate to seem to be the only person to oppose this Measure. I do not oppose it in toto, because there are many good features about it. Although I am, in general, in favour of assenting to these more or less agreed Measures which come to us from the National Assembly since we have given this degree of self-government to the Church, of England, at the same time, so long as this rather hybrid procedure is maintained, by which we are allowed to criticise and comment on such Measures, I see no reason why we should not do so. Otherwise if it is not proper for us to discuss them, if they are simply to be rushed through automatically, we might as well abolish this procedure


altogether and give the Church of England complete self-government—which I," for one, might prefer.
There are, in fact, a number of points about this Measure which I think need a little further elucidation and explanation than the hon. and gallant Member has been able to give us. He said that the committee which is provided for in this Measure was to be elected "in the most democratic way." I agree, but it seems that all the members of the committee will be the creatures of the diocesan bishop concerned. The committee is to consist of incumbents and clerks in holy orders "licensed under seal to officiate" in the diocese of the incumbent whose case is under discussion, and, "if fewer than the required number of persons shall have been nominated, the bishop shall have power to nominate a sufficient number of persons "to make up the required number. It is not done even by co-option. It is done by nomination of the bishop. This does not seem to me to be a particularly democratic procedure.
I am a little in difficulties here, because I want to put a point which it would be easier to put if my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. M. Hughes) were here; his name is on the Order Paper in support of this Measure. I would like to warn my hon. and learned Friend that he is getting mixed up with some dangerous revolutionaries when he adds his name to a Motion which is sponsored by the hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest (Major Mills) and the right hon. and gallant baronet the Member for Rye (Sir G. Courthope), because the real point about this Measure, which I do not think my hon. and gallant Friend really brought out when introducing it, is that it destroys, or at any rate drastically modifies, the ancient institution known as the parson's freehold. By all conservatively-minded people, especially in the rural areas, this has always been regarded as one of the props and bulwarks of our established social order. It is interesting to see that this drastic and revolutionary modification of the freehold is introduced by unimpeachably Conservative Members of this House; I would like to ask why. I would not oppose a modification of the parson's freehold—if the situation demands it, as I think it probably does—from a blindly

conservative point of view. At the same time I would like to ask why and within what limits it is being modified at this point.
When this Measure was originally discussed at the diocesan level, before it reached the National Assembly, I gather that it met with a considerable amount of opposition and aroused many misgivings. Those misgivings were to some extent allayed when the clergy and others who voiced them were told that safeguards would be introduced into the Measure to prevent any abuse of it such as had been feared. I have read the Measure carefully, and I have failed to find the safeguards which were promised. I will come in a minute to the points which aroused the misgivings.
As I have said, I am not totally opposed to the Measure. Obviously it meets a real need. There is a real need, in the interests of the efficiency of the Church, for the authorities to be able to remove from his office some clergyman who is quite patently incompetent to perform his duty. Also, the provision of a pension which is contained in the Measure is extremely welcome, even though the pension only guarantees the wife of the retired parson something under £4 a week on which to run her household, whereas a few minutes ago, without question, we passed a Measure which, guarantees the wife of the retired suffragan bishop something approaching £10 a week on which to maintain her lord and master—a distinction which would have seemed quite proper to Mrs. Proudie. Still, it is in the main, a good Measure, in so far as it affects pensions and in so far as it is necessary to have some machinery for removing clergy from their benefices if they are really quite incapable of performing their duties.
But the serious objections to the Measure seem to me to be those which were raised at the diocesan level and in the National Assembly, and which have not yet been removed in the drafting of the Measure as it reaches us. For instance, there is no definition in Clause 1, which is a definition Clause, of the phrase "mental infirmity." This is a Measure which enables the bishop of a diocese of the Church of England, on the advice of a committee consisting largely of his own creatures, to throw out of his benefice


any incumbent who "by reason of age or infirmity, whether bodily or mental," is unable to discharge his duties. There is no requirement in the Measure of any medical evidence, and there is no provision for an appeal. The interpretation of the phrase "mental infirmity" is the simple test of whether a clergyman should be thrown out of his incumbency. Where are the "safeguards" which the ordinary clergy were promised at the diocesan level and when the matter was debated, as I understand, in the National Assembly? It seems to me extremely dangerous to introduce into a Measure which is to have the approval of this House some vague phrase such as "mental infirmity," and so to allow a citizen, whether he is a clergyman or not, to have his whole way of life altered arbitrarily by the action of his superior officer, on that phrase alone.
Let me go a little further into this point of mental infirmity. A few months ago there was a case which was widely reported in the newspapers in which an unfortunate clergyman got into trouble with the Church authorities—I cannot remember the exact details, or where it happened—because he frequented public-houses and was given to drinking in them. It caused some scandal to the good people of his parish and, in the end, in some way, he was removed from the parish. It is already possible for any clergyman around whom a scandal arises as the law stands, to be removed from his incumbency. There is a possibility of proceedings in a consistory court, undesirable though they may be. Also, of course, if a clergyman is quite manifestly insane or a lunatic, certification would obviously be possible; so that this Measure cannot possibly be intended to replace all those procedures. It must mean rather less. Can it mean in any circumstances that a clergyman who was perhaps rather too convivial, or frequented inns or other places of popular resort in his parish, and thus offended the more rigidly respectable members of his congregation, is to be proceeded against under the terms of this Measure? I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend does not intend that it should happen like that. He shakes his head. But is there any safeguard in the Measure against a rigid interpretation of that kind by the committee provided for?
What seems to me far more dangerous and important is that the point I have

mentioned is a possibility—I do not put it higher than that—that this Measure can be used for the purpose of discrimination against political or ecclesiastical extremists or eccentrics. That particular point was, I know, raised at various diocesan conferences, and various eminent Church dignitaries assured those who raised it that the Measure could not be so used, and that safeguards would be introduced. I cannot see any safeguards in the Measure. When I think of the history of the Church I am a little doubtful about the possible interpretation that can be placed on this completely undefined phrase, "mental infirmity." I believe that if this Measure had been in existence in the 14th Century, for instance, that great hero and pioneer of the Church and the working-class Movement, John Ball, would certainly have been turned out of his parish. He was described by Froissart as "the mad priest of Kent." Every clergyman who has taken a really independent or eccentric line in ecclesiastical matters has always 'been described as "mad," by somebody or other.
As a matter of fact, one of the glories of the Church of England has been her slightly eccentric country clergymen. If there had been a Measure like this in force when George Herbert was parson at Bemerton in the 17th century, I wonder whether some stuffy and sticky fellow-incumbents of his, perhaps jealous of his reputation in the literary world, might not have gone to the bishop and said, "He writes poetry—eccentric stuff—all about collars, and pulleys, and elixirs, and mystic brides." The bishop might have said "Poetry—mystic brides—how dreadful! We must get him out of it, we must get rid of him. We certainly don't want a nasty scandal at Bemerton." Then, a century ago, there was another great eccentric, Parson Hawker of Morwenstow, who took his domestic animals to church with him, and also wrote poetry, and invented the new-fangled Harvest Festival, and dressed himself up in very odd vestments indeed, and preached a social gospel similar to that of Kingsley and other Christian Socialists of the 19th century, I cannot help feeling that some of the clerymen in his diocese, in the mental atmosphere which then prevailed in any diocese, might have said, "This man is mad; he is crazy. We must be rid of


him"; and I doubt if the bishop would have refused to assent.
My final instance is a man whom I regard as one of the greatest saints of the Church of England in my lifetime, the late Conrad Noel, Vicar of Thaxted, in my own county of Essex, whom I often heard the wealthy and respectable people of the county denounce as "cracked." They said, "He may be a good man, but he is cracked. He hangs a red flag in his church, he goes in for all sorts of eccentric medieval ceremonial," and so on. I claim that whether it is political or ecclesiastical, mere eccentricity should not be penalised by such a Measure. I cannot see any safeguard in the Measure, such as was promised at the diocesan level and at the National Assembly level, against such penalisation of eccentricity.
I can quite understand that this Measure is dear to the hearts of some of our Anglican bishops. Some of the bishops of the Church of England, good men as they are, have an exalted view of their own position, and increasingly fancy themselves as petty popes. A bishop, certainly an Anglican bishop, is not a pope, and the further he can be kept from being a pope the better for the ordinary clergy and laity under him. I am afraid that some of them do not want to encourage the kind of quality which is exhibited in the lives of men like Noel, John Ball, and George Herbert—the quality of sanctity, of heroic sanctity. Indeed, they are rather embarrassed by it. They prefer to propagate a comfortable, moderate, lukewarm, bureaucratic, plush-padded "central" churchmanship, thoroughly efficient on paper—and stone dead.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Tinker: I would like to join in what my hon. Friend has said. It may seem strange that I should do so, because I am not of his religion; but we should be sure of what this Measure means, because, whatever the effect, we are responsible for it. There is an expression which I have noticed in several paragraphs. Clause 3, says:
In any case where the bishop is satisfied that such action is proper, he may by notice in writing instruct the Committee to consider and report to him whether in their opinion an incumbent through disability arising from age or infirmity (whether bodily or mental).…

That term "mental" can be applied in many ways. Even in this House, when we hear a speech that we do not agree with, we are apt to say that the Member has something wrong with him, and if we had our way we would put him in some other place. Who is to judge? You may have in any assembly some really good man who considers that certain things are not proper, and who goes against the powers that be. It may be eccentricity. The heads of the Church may say, "That will not do; he is going against our teaching." The hon. and gallant Member made out a very good case, and I daresay he is ready to reply to us. But this word "mental" troubles me, and I want to be satisfied that it does not mean that a man in the full flush of youth or middle age may be dismissed just because he goes against the things laid down by the Church.

10.18 p.m.

Mr. Henry Brooke: My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) is not a member of the Church of England, but I assure him that he is fully ^entitled to exercise his rights as a Member of Parliament to voice questions such as he has raised. I should be the last person to say that Measures sent up by the Church Assembly should go through formally, if there were any Members who wished to raise questions on them. I was sorry that the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) looked at the worst side of every picture which he presented to us, and attributed to a large number of people the maximum of incompetence and the lowest of motives.

Mr. Driberg: No.

Mr. Brooke: What we have to recognise is that it is a Measure designed, as he himself admitted, I think, to remedy what is known to be an existing scandal. There are cases of scandal where persons enjoying what he described as "the parson's freehold," are not doing their duty, by common consent, to those whom they are sent to serve, and yet, under the present law, are irremovable. We have to try to meet that position, without opening great loopholes for abuse.

Mr. Driberg: There was one point that I forgot to make in my speech, and the


hon. Member has just reminded me of it. Are the parishioners or congregation consulted on any point in the procedure laid down in the Measure?

Mr. A. Bevan: What is the procedure?

Mr. Brooke: The procedure is laid down in the Measure, and I hope the hon. Member will study it.

Mr. Bevan: I have studied it, and I intend to follow the hon. Member if I catch the eye of Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Brooke: In that case, I do not understand why the hon. Member asked "What is the procedure?"

Mr. Bevan: I wanted the hon. Member to tell us.

Mr. Brooke: The procedure is that a committee of ministers is democratically elected in the diocese, and if these people are to be truly described as "creatures of the diocesan bishop," the hon. Member is really condemning, wholesale, the Church of England, to which I think he belongs. If we cannot trust the clergy of the diocese with the exercise, of this sort of democratic right, it really seems to me that this Parliament should withdraw from the Church of England the democratic freedom which we granted to it under the Enabling Act, and that, I fancy, is really the question to which the hon. Member ought to have asked the House to address itself. These people are democratically elected. They have the fullest powers to consult everybody, and the incumbent whose fitness is in question has the right to appear or to send a friend to represent him. That body, which is, as are all elected bodies, responsible to those who elected it, is surely not now to be said by the House of Commons to be likely to act entirely irresponsibly and refuse to hear people who have a right to put their own views?
All the matters which I have heard the hon. Member for Maldon mention have been brought up, I should like to assure the House, at every stage of this long-considered Measure. They have been carefully examined in the Church Assembly and in the diocesan conferences. The hon. Member said that grave question had been raised in the diocesan con-

ferences whether this Measure should go through. In fact, out of 42 diocesan conferences, this Measure received general approval from 41; there was only one conference at which it did not receive general approval. That was the report made to the Church Assembly when it finally had to decide. A number of amendments were suggested by the diocesan conferences, I think some seven or eight, in all, and the Measure incorporates changes made to meet all but one of those suggested amendments.
The hon. Member for Maldon insinuated that this Measure was being rushed through, or was liable to be rushed through, automatically, by Parliament. I think he did not give sufficient attention to the fact that we have in Parliament an Ecclesiastical Committee of both Houses, responsible to us and to another place. With the leave of the House, I would like to read the report of the Committee—

Mr. Driberg: Before the hon. Member does so, may I ask him if it is not the case that the diocesan conferences passed a number of amending resolutions which were not accepted by the National Assembly?

Mr. Brooke: I really think that the hon. Member has in mind, not this Measure, but another, called the Benefices (Change of Incumbents) Measure, which met very heavy weather and was, later on, withdrawn.

Mr. Driberg: Is this a substitute for it?

Mr. Brooke: No, that is an entirely separate Measure. By comparison this had a relatively smooth passage, and I give the hon. Member my personal assurance on that. Our own Ecclesiastical Committee has reported that,
as a result of much consideration from 1936 onwards, the present Measure has received such general support that its object can now be said to be non-controversial.
The hon. and gallant Member who has submitted the Measure to the House has kept closely in touch with it through all its stages. I very much hope that the House will accept the Measure in view of the assurances that he and I have given.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. A. Bevan: I had my attention called to this Measure this


afternoon, and I am bound to tell the House that, normally, Measures of this sort do not excite my curiosity very much. If I had my way, the House of Commons would be exempted from the necessity of considering Measures of this sort at all. I am not a member of the Catholic Church, or of any other religious denomination, and I think it is appalling that we should, in 1945, have to go through these antediluvian gesticulations every now and again because we have an Established Church. I ask the Government why we are asked to discuss this Measure at all now at the end of a Parliament. We have been blackmailed—I use the word advisedly—by the statement of the Government that we have to give Parliamentary time to a large number of non-controversial Measures, because, otherwise, they will not be passed into law.

Sir Joseph Nall: On a point of Order. Is it not the fact that the Government have no control at all over the presentation of these Measures?

Mr. Speaker: The Government have no control at all.

Mr. Bevan: The Government can deny time.

Mr. Speaker: The Government have no control whatsoever of the presentation of these Measures.

Mr. Bevan: I agree that, in formal terms, the Government have no control but everybody in the House knows they have effective control. [An Hon. Member: "Learn the procedure."] I do know what backstairs methods mean. The hon. Member knows that if they had wanted to influence the Government in bringing this before the House they could have arranged this matter.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Sir Austin Hudson): The hon. Member is wrong this time.

Mr. Bevan: The Government have such power.

Sir A. Hudson: Quite wrong.

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Member is right, in terms of technical procedure in the House, but wrong in regard to realities. I ask why the House of Commons, at the end of a Parliament, should be obstructed, in the consideration of very important Measures, by being asked to discuss a question of this sort. I want my hon. Friends on this side of the House to ask themselves why we are being rushed, in considering a large number of important Measures, and yet are asked to devote some hours this evening 10 a Measure of this sort.
With regard to the merits of the Measure, I am rather shocked because it appears from my reading of the Motion before the House, that we are going to confer upon bishops the power of removing priests from their employment without any effective way of appeal. I do not like it at all. I am not interested very much in the ecclesiastical or sacerdotal aspects of the matter, but I am concerned at the House of Commons conferring upon bishops the power of removing a clergyman without the clergyman himself having an effective form of appeal against the bishops. We are conferring very extraordinary powers upon the bishops. Normally, if a person were removed for improper reasons, he would have recourse to the courts, but, now that we are conferring this power on the bishops, priests will have no such opportunity. We are conferring on bishops extraordinary juridical functions and powers which, normally, they would not possess. The Motion says that the bishop may remove the clergyman if the possibility arises from physical or mental infirmity. I have known a number of bishops against whom a charge could be made and there are a number of clergymen against whom a charge could be made; but I would like to ask what is the definition of "mental infirmity."
If we had this Measure before the House in respect of any other citizen there would be questions at once: "What is the definition of 'mental infirmity; is it a certificate of insanity?" Of course not. What is it? Is it merely eccentricity? If it is eccentricity, as the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) pointed out, some of the most eminent clerymen in the history of this could have been removed from their benefices. [An Hon. Member: "Dean Inge."] He is an outstanding


example. What is the test? Is it to be subjective or objective? If it is objective—if mental infirmity is going to be determined by some objective test, then it may, as my hon. Friend opposite claimed, not operate and act against the clergyman unless there is a medical certificate, because I know of no other test I would like to apply in these circumstances. I would not like to confer on any employer the right to dismiss a man on the ground that he suffered from mental infirmity merely because the employer said so; merely because he disagreed with the man's point of view or because the man was eccentric, extraordinary, unusual or abnormal. These are powers, as my hon. Friend was good enough to remind us, conferred on us to determine whether we are going to give a bishop the right to say: "You are to be removed from your employment because, in my opinion, you suffer from mental infirmity." I know of no one in this House who would give any person powers of that sort under any Bill. I would like to know at once what is the definition of "mental infirmity" that hon. Members are asking to be read into this Motion.

Mr. Brooke: Would the hon. Member explain where he gets the phrase: "in the bishop's opinion"?

Mr. Bevan: Because, in fact, the important person in this matter is the bishop. The committee is obviously the creature of the bishop. If you look at the Schedule and at the Motion, the fact is that the bishop is the operative person in practice and administration. If he disagrees with the clergyman, he can remove him effectively if he wishes to do so by stating that the man is suffering from some form of mental infirmity.

Mr. Brooke: Will the hon. Member explain how?

Mr. Bevan: I will come to the committee in a moment. At present I am dealing with the bishop, because the bishop is the operative person. We are conferring on these high lights of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, powers which they do not at present possess, and these powers are to remove persons. I want to refer in a moment or two to the first Schedule.
It is perfectly true that there is a form of democracy which refers to a committee.

There may be a committee of clergymen. But the fact is that in so far as the bishop himself may make allegations against any clergyman, he is the effective controller of the committee because the clergymen are now subject to any accusation he may make against them. Indeed, the Schedule provides for the fact that the clergymen themselves may not themselves form the committee. It is the bishop who, in the first instance, involves formation of the committee and the bishop organises the establishment of the committee and conducts the ballot of the committee and, in the event of the clergymen not forming the committee adequately, the bishop may make appointments to the committee In other words, if a committee is to consist of 20 and if only 10 are appointed the bishop may himself appoint the other 10. That is the meaning of the first Schedule.

Major Mills: The hon. Member has not taken the opposite point in Clause 7:
If more than the required number of persons has been nominated.
The procedure in that case is laid down at some length.

Mr. Bevan: But suppose the number is less?

Major Mills: The hon. Member is only taking the case in which it is less. It may be either less or more, but it is much more likely to be more than less because there is to be election right through the diocese.

Mr. Bevan: Is that so? If the operation of the bishop is to be so curbed, I can imagine that in many instances the number will be less. Clause 4 says:
Notice of any election together with a nomination paper shall be sent to every clerk in Holy Orders beneficed or licensed under seal to officiate in the diocese and a period of not less than fourteen days shall be allowed for the making of nominations. If after the expiration of this period fewer than the required number of persons shall have been nominated, the bishop shall have power to nominate a sufficient number of persons to make up the required number.
Let us, therefore, assume that in a certain diocese the clergymen are sufficiently indifferent to their obligations under this as not to take the trouble to send in nomination papers for the appointment of the committee—because, remember, we are concerned about the individual clergyman who may be the victim of the neglect


of his own fellow-clergymen. Suppose they do not send in the required nomination papers. Under this procedure the bishop can himself constitute the committee. It might easily happen that he will be the arbiter of the majority of the committee and he might say, "I consider a certain clergyman to be 'daft,' to be suffering from a certain infirmity." Having said that, he can bring that person before the committee and he can appoint a curate or person to replace the clergyman. He can remove him for two years or discharge him altogether and there is no appeal. It is the bishop who is the final arbiter; he is not only in the seat of the jury but he is the judge too. In no circumstances would the House of Commons allow a procedure of that form to be rushed through in respect of any other body of persons.
I am not, as the House knows, very familiar with the procedure of the Church of England, but I do insist that it is our

Resolved:
That the Incumbents (Disability) Measure, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to His Majesty for His Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.

Orders of the Day — GAS (SPECIAL ORDERS)

Resolved:
That the Draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Minister of Fuel and Power under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Rural District Council of Ennerdale which was presented on 15th May and published, be approved."—[Sir Austin Hudson.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

duty here to defend individual clergymen against the arbitrary exercise of powers by highly-placed ecclesiastics and I do urge on the House that we ought not to allow these powers to be conferred upon episcopal persons without reconsideration of what they are asked to do.

I suspect very much that the reason we have been asked to consider it now, in these circumstances, and in this atmosphere, is because we could not possibly be persuaded to give these powers in more normal circumstances. I do sincerely urge, in the interest of the protection of a body of persons who are entitled to protection—because,remember, we are conferring juridical powers upon committees and bishops in the Church of England the effect of which is to deprive clergymen of common law rights—I say that we ought not to give these powers, which are a reflection upon the House of Commons.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 37; Noes, 5.

Division No. 22.]
AYES.
[10.43 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. Sir G. J.
Grant-Ferris, Wins-Commander R.
Prescott, Capt. W. R. S.


Agnew, Comdr. P. G.
Harmon, Sir P. J. H.
Procter, Major H. A.


Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C.
Harvey, T. E.
Profumo, Colonel J. D.


Brooke, H. (Lewisham)
Herbert, Petty Officer A. P. (Oxford U.)
Pym, L. R.


Caine, G. R. Hall.
Hopkinson, A.
Raikes, H. V. A. M.


Cary, R. A.
Hudson, Sir A. (Hackney, N.)
Ross, Taylor, W.


Colegate, W. A.
Hutchinson, G. C. (Ilford)
Watt, F. C. (Edinburgh, Cen.)


Cox, Major H. M. Trevor
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)
Wragg, Sir H.


Craven-Ellis, W.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.
York, Major C.


Cundiff, Major F. W.
Mathers, G.
Young, Major A. S. L. (Partick)


Davies, D. R. S. (Carnarvon)
Mott-Radclyffe, Major C. E.



Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Nall, Sir J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Nield, Lt.-Col. B. E.
Major Mills and Colonel Sir George Courthope.


Elliot, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.






NOES.


Driberg, T. E. N.
Stokes, R. R.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:—


Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Tinker, J. J.
Mr. Bevan and Mr. Bowles.


Reakes, G. L. (Wallasey)

Orders of the Day — AIRCRAFT FACTORY PREMISES, MANCHESTER (USE)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Major A. S. L. Young.]

10.51 p.m.

Mr. Oldfield: I desire to bring before the notice of this House a matter of very great importance to the division I represent and to the city of, Manchester as a whole. This matter has been brought before the House on a previous occasion by Question and answer. On 14th February, I placed a Question on the Order Paper in relation to this particular works. The works are the West shop of the aircraft factory at Openshaw, Manchester. Arising out of certain news


that was percolating throughout the division, I placed this Question on the Order Paper:
To ask the Minister of Aircraft Production whether his attention has been called to the serious position arising out of the closing of certain parts of a new factory, erected in Openshaw, Manchester, for the purpose of storage, resulting in the stopping of skilled men and unskilled men and women; and why a new and up-to-date factory, with all modern amenities, should be used for such a purpose, in view of post-war reconstruction instead of a much older factory."—[Official Report, 14th February, 1945, Vol. 408, c. 211.]
I got a reply from the Minister of Aircraft Production in which he indicated that these premises were going to be used for the purpose of the storage of component parts of aircraft and for the assembly of such parts. In view of the information which I had received that morning, I put a supplementary question. I said that three engineering firms were waiting to take over part of this factory and asked my right hon. and learned Friend to consider releasing the factory at once. The reply I received from the Minister was that the matter had been thoroughly considered by the three Departments, the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Labour, and the Ministry of Aircraft Production, and that the action taken was considered to be "in the best interests"—of the prosecution of the war, I presume. I want the House to know that the answer which I got was, in one sentence, that the accommodation was being used temporarily with the consent of the Board of Trade for the storage of aircraft components awaiting final assembly. It is upon this point of storage, arising out of the policy of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, that we cross swords. When I use the words "we" I include every Member of Parliament for the city of Manchester, without exception. Also let me say—arising out of the reeling within the Division and the feeling within the city—deputations have waited upon the Lord Mayor of our city, who, I must say, has been very active in this matter. Further, the Manchester city council itself discussed this matter for two hours in relation to the use of such a place as this, a new factory, for the purpose of storage.
What is this place? It comprises a part of an up-to-date factory. There are four workshops. There is a gun shop, a North shop, an East shop and a West shop, and it is the West shop which is under con-

sideration. This place, which I have had the privilege of going over many times, is full of the latest amenities. It has rest rooms; it has canteens; it has, ambulance services. I am given to understand that it has cost £3,500,000.

Mr. Stokes: How many people are employed?

Mr. Oldfield: Four to five thousand

Mr. Stokes: In the West shop?

Mr. Oldfield: In the West shop, 2,000. Out of this sum I have mentioned, £700,000 was spent on the erection of buildings and £2,750,000 on the remainder—machinery, etc. That is very significant. The West shop under review to-night was erected at a cost of £1,000,000,of which £300,000 was spent on the erection of buildings, and the balance of £700,000 on the installation of machinery. Since this £700,000 was spent, a further £170,000 has been added. As a matter of interest, I may mention that these works were built upon the site of the old Armstrong-Whitworth's factory in Openshaw, which was demolished and which, at its peak production, employed some 9,000 people. My people and the people of the city feel that the dominating thing is fear. They have this fear because, during the period of the demolition of Armstrong-Whitworth factory, unemployment in the division was something like 21.1 per cent. I have briefly indicated the background of this question as it applies to the factory, and the intentions of the Ministry of Aircraft Production regarding it. What have the Manchester Members done to influence the Department to alter their policy? We interviewed the Board of Trade representatives upon this matter. We had a good assembly of hon. Members in one of the Committee Rooms upstairs, and I will give the House briefly, the report which we made upon this matter:
Strong recommendations were made to the President that these works should not be used for storage purposes and that in the future if they were not required for the purpose for which they were built, then the works should be used to house other engineering works located in the Manchester area. It is impossible to emphasise the pressure that was brought to bear on the President of the short sighted policy it would be for any portion of these works to be used for storage purposes.
I received a letter from the President of the Board of Trade in which he in-


formed me that he would foe glad to reassure me that there was no intention of using any part of this factory for storage except for a strictly limited period in connection with urgent war production and that as soon as the situation permitted it would be turned over to civilian production. We, the Members from the Manchester district, say, in so far as that is concerned, that we are still protesting vehemently against the factory being used at all for that purpose. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aircraft Production interviewed the Manchester M.P.'s headed by the Lord Mayor of our city and, let me say, that we were received very cordially and very courteously. Some of our Members came away with the idea that we had—I was going to say "hit the bull's eye"—that in a way we had scored. Personally I was not of that opinion. At any rate we received a letter from the Parliamentary Secretary the following week and the Members from Manchester discussed this letter at full length. I have here a copy of the reply we sent, in which we intimated in no uncertain manner, that we were completely dissatisfied with the letter sent by the Parliamentary Secretary. Arising out of that we received another letter from the Parliamentary Secretary, in which he intimated to us that we must see the First Lord of the Admiralty in relation to certain matters and that they were going to decide in a few days the course to be taken in regard to this factory. The Manchester Members of Parliament then interviewed the First Lord. We were told a day or two after the interview that the First Lord had no intention of using the factory and therefore as far as the Admiralty were concerned it could go back to civilian production.
I have received a letter to-day from the city of Manchester in relation to this matter. I am given to understand in that letter that a good deal of the storage which it is intended to bring in there is from disused cotton mills and worsted mills which are already being used for storage and that the reason for this storage of surplus material is because of the over-buying of A. V. Roe's. I am just giving the Minister an opinion from a most reliable authority. I am further given to understand that there was an

intention, though I think that has been dropped, to spend something like £18,000 upon putting a crane and other accessories in to make it into a better place for lifting the articles brought into the shop. But what they are doing—and I saw this on Saturday moming—is to put down mono-rails to run into this West shop, which cannot be done without money. This is wastage of money for a shop like this in our opinion, and we are therefore appealing to the Minister to reverse this policy. The Members for Manchester, and the principal men in the area, say that it is almost verging upon criminality to use such an up-to-date place for such purposes. There are firms who want to take this place. We had it from the President of the Board of Trade that there were applications for this and for other factories. I appeal on behalf of the men and women in my Division who are afraid that once we get this place filled with storage of this type—which is some kind of steel and alloy—it will be years before it can be emptied and given back to the production, which we desire to see started at once.

11.7 p.m.

Major F. W. Cundiff: I rise to support briefly what the hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Oldfield) has said. It is, indeed, unfortunate that the hon. Member for the Exchange Division (Mr. Hewlett) is not in his place to-night owing to illness, as he has taken a very great interest in this case. The hon. Member for Gorton has very fully covered the ground, but I may add certain facts to those already stated. This is a place of approximately 20,000 square feet, built for the special purpose of producing some type of armaments not now required. The cost in the first place was £965,000, and later, £131,000 was spent on it. I do not want to go into a description of the factory, but it is true that several firms, to my knowledge, are very interested in it, and would be willing to take it over at a fair price. But it so happens that the Ministry of Aircraft Production at the present time is in need of storage, and I believe that the idea is running in their minds that they should take over this factory.
Very briefly, one can argue from two points of view—from the local point of


view, that is, the Manchester point of view; and from the national point of view—against the Ministry of Aircraft Production carrying out their ideas. This factory is situated in a densely populated area which, after the last war, had the greatest difficulty in finding employment for its people. Therefore, the Lord Mayor of Manchester and the city council and many citizens there, are greatly concerned about the future of this factory. But it does seem to me that from a national point of view there is much to be said for retaining it. I would like to remind the Minister of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his Budget speech, when he explained to us that when we had our backs against the wall, good housekeeping had to be thrown to the winds. But happily that time has passed, and I would therefore ask the Minister to remember, in this case, the claims of good housekeeping. Finally, apart from any question of economics, if this factory is to be stripped and gutted merely to become a store tent, that would, in itself, be an act of commercial or industrial sacrilege. I do appeal to the Minister to consider Manchester and to consider Manchester's post-war policy, her employment in the post-war years. I also ask him to consider this from a national point of view so that this factory should not be gutted.

11.10 p.m.

Mr. Rostron Duckworth: I do not intend at this late hour to keep the House long, but I do wish to associate myself with everything that has been said by the two previous speakers. The main reason that causes me to support them is that the factory was built for production purposes. There are other works, within a reasonable radius, in other industrial areas near Manchester, one of which I could name, which have 275,000 square feet, and would have been tremendously helpful for the purpose for which the Ministry are using this important factory. The factory to which I am referring was really built for storage purposes. It is Pine Mill, Sherwood Street, Oldham. It seems to me that when there are opportunities for the Ministry to take such places for storage use, it is quite wrong to devote a factory of this kind to storage. Furthermore, if places like this factory are not to be kept for production, we shall have trouble with

regard to the employment of the men coming back from the Services; and also, we shall not be able to increase our export trade by the 50 per cent. which is so necessary if we are to carry out the big social reforms which we hope our people are to enjoy in the near future.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: May I ask the hon. Member one question? This Pine Mill he mentioned—how many storeys has it?

Mr. Duckworth: I believe two. They have, I may say, suitable lifts for the large loads.

11.12 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aircraft Production (Mr. Lennox-Boyd): This is eminently a proper subject to be raised on the Adjournment, and as the hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Oldfield) has said, it is no party matter. We have been approached, and properly approached, by a number of hon. Members, and in particular by the hon. Member who raised this matter, by my hon. Friend the Member for Moss Side (Mr. Duckworth), the hon. Member for Clayton (Mr. H. Thorneycroft) and the hon. Member for the Exchange Division of Manchester (Mr. Hewlett), who, I am sorry to hear, is prevented by ill-health from being here. They all quite properly, remember the experiences which we had after the last war. They are afraid of a return of that situation, when a long slump followed a short boom. As I know personally, there are men, employed hitherto in these works, who suffered continuous and cruel unemployment throughout the period of the engineering decline. This anxiety on the part of hon. Members is shared by His Majesty's Government who really intend to do all that is possible with wise planning to see that fine plant of this kind, in districts historically famous for engineering skill, is employed for productive purposes.
I should like very briefly to remind the House of the facts of the situation. The West shop to which the hon. Member referred has been used for Lancaster undercarriage production and Spitfire tail oleos. Last November, as a result of the changed conditions of the war—this is a matter for rejoicing and not for


gloom—a new programme was agreed on, which led to a substantial decline in the demand for undercarriages, and I would like to stress the fact that these are economic changes that follow on victory in Europe and must not be regarded as unhappy in themselves. We do not want to go on all our lives making engines of war. We want to see these factories change to civil production. There is an obligation on the Government to see that wherever possible a proper civil productive use is found, and we must not be disturbed because changes in the previous occupation are rendered necessary by the advancing fortunes of war. This decline in the number of undercarriages that we needed led to a reconsideration of the position in this great factory at Openshaw.
We had a number of other factors to consider. In the first place there is, as hon. Members well know, a difficult labour situation in the North-West Region, owing to the shortage of highly skilled labour. That is no reflection on the district, but a compliment to the district. At the same time, we have got obligations, as part of our policy of doing what we can to maintain full employment, to see that work is given to the old Development Areas. We have in Newcastle a Development Area, another Vickers plant. That is a factor we have to bear in mind, when planning wisely for the nation as a whole, and that I am sure will receive the approval of my hon. Friends opposite.
At the same time we have an acute storage problem, in no way due to imprudent buying, but to the fact that the fabrication period for big aeroplanes like the Lancaster or the Lincoln is a very lengthy one, and it is necessary to have the materials assembled in advance. The need of assembling them in advance, became more urgent when invasion was pending, and the possibility of dislocation of home transport and the need to feed the advancing armies in Europe led us to collect, in advance, materials that normally might have been assembled at greater leisure. It may fairly be said that the "go slow" policy of some at the A. V. Roe works has led to an accumulation of raw materials that we hoped

would be flying by June and are now assembled on the production floor of these factories. This led to an accumulation of raw materials for aircraft manufacture, which have been cluttering up the production shops at A. V. Roe, and actually holding up production, and I assure my hon. Friend that production has suffered because of the shortage of storage space. As a result of all these factors, we had to look again at our potential. We decided that the best plan, in the interests of the nation as a whole and of the war effort against the Japanese, was to stop under-carriage production at Openshaw, and to transfer from Openshaw to Newcastle—to the Vickers plant at Newcastle, in a Development area—Lincoln undercarriage work and the Spitfire tail oleos, and to use Openshaw for awhile for vital storage. We had to find somewhere, very close to the great A. V. Roe works at Chadderton, a place suitable for storage, and the suggestion of my hon. Friend that the Pine Mill might be used, I am afraid, falls to the ground. It has six floors and a number of other factors, which, despite our real desire to use it, makes it unsuitable for this particular purpose.

Mr. Oldfield: Is it not a fact that this is a very suitable place for quick storage?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am sorry but I have only got till 11.25. I must hurry over what I have yet to say. A new factor has now intervened. We have to release certain other plants in the Manchester area, in particular the Laurel Mill and the Shepley Lino Works and the Manchester Omnibus Company garage at Withenshaw, and so we shall be in a position to give productive work now being done in these factories to Openshaw. So there will be productive employment for a period throughout the whole tenure of the war against Japan. It will not in any way interfere with the long term use of this plant, and the Board of Trade are actively in touch with firms who are interested so that there will be permanent civil employment there when this temporary production work is over.
No promise can be given, but I think it possible that A. V. Roe may be able to give employment for 1,000 men at Open-


shaw, which approximates to the number employed at the peak period of previous production in, the West shop, for the remainder of stage two, and afterwards nothing will be done to jeopardise the eventual use of this factory, which can and must be used for permanent civil work. We should, I think, be glad to have this productive work for a while, without the eventual use being in any way prejudiced.

It being half an hour after the conclusion of Business exempted from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House), Mr. Deputy-Speaker adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order, as modified for this Session by the Order of the House of 30th November.

Adjourned at Twenty Minutes past Eleven o'Clock